Jen Kennedy and Liz Linden

Book swap… is a constantly evolving feminist library where visitors are encouraged to take books from the collection in exchange for one from their own. This ever-expanding installation, which initially consisted of over 100 books from the artists’ personal collections of feminist literature, works on the principle that knowledge production should be a community based, collective pursuit unencumbered by the increasing privatization of universities and libraries.

Book swap… has been installed at DISPATCH, New York, NY and at The Sackler Center for Feminism Art in the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

REFERENDUM was installed throughout the Brooklyn Museum as part of making ourselves visible: a day-long project in feminist space-making. At each polling station, the visitor sees a referendum question related to the condition of contemporary feminism: In the lobby visitors were asked “Do you call yourself a feminist?” and “Do you believe in equal rights for women?” and in the Museum’s Sackler Center for Feminist Art “Do political movements bearing the same name have to retain some of their predecessor’s principles in order to be visible in their contemporary moment?” Appropriating Hans Haacke’s MoMA Poll (1979), REFERENDUM visually registers visitor’s positions on some of the pressing political issues that confront us today

Since the winter of 2009, we have been organizing reading groups dedicated to examining that day’s issue of the New York Times. Our original New York Times Feminist Reading Groups performance took place at DISPATCH in New York. It has since been presented at P.P.O.W gallery in New York and in the New Museum’s exhibition The Last Newspaper.

At this town-hall style public discussion, participants were asked to engaged in a temporally specific, group experiment aimed at frank dialogue about the feminisms of our day. Relying on a provisional, substitutive vocabulary, this performance aimed to explore terrain that is not circumscribed by the semantics and tactics of past positions by looking at what, in our contemporary conception of feminiism-as-live-practice, we hold to be intrinsic, innate, and unique.

What happens when we are forced to temporarily set aside the terms of the past and asked to discuss feminism is a language that is rooted artificially and solely in the present? Through a non-scripted, non-hierarchical collaboration with the participants, we used the “Dictionary of Temporary Approximations” to explore the nature of feminisms present, ultimately rejuvenating the original terms by returning them to the conversation at the end of the experiment.

Making ourselves visible was a one-day installation-experiment in feminist space-making, an interactive artwork that encouraged visitors to represent their politics in a variety of ways throughout the installation. At making ourselves visible, we were joined by Hilton Als, Emily Apter, Johanna Burton, the Yes! Association, and other writers, artists, and activists who led a series of teach-ins exploring the question, “what does feminism look like today?”

Pilot press… is a platform for critical exchange taking the shape of a feminist publishing house open and available to all. Our installation will offer the services of a publishing apprentice, who will, during opening hours, publish the works of anyone interested in having their text produced by our imprint. In exchange for this free publication service, the author is required to leave a single bound copy of their work on the growing shelf of our imprint’s library.

The project is intended to be ephemeral, offered up as a counterpoint to the authority of august publishing houses. Pilot press... provides a non-hierarchical, unedited, and uncensored look at the practices and production of the self-identified feminist community. By producing a DIY “cannon” of new feminist work, in a very public and uncensored manner, we propose, on our own terms, an antidote to perceived the stagnancy and inflexibility of the movement.

The installation will be very simple, consisting of a high-volume printer or xerox machine, a bookbinding machine, an ISSN stamp, and a shelf the library. The only specific technical requirement for this installation is an available electrical outlet.

What happens when we are forced to temporarily set aside the terms of the past and asked to discuss feminism is a language that is rooted artificially and solely in the present? Through its various instantiations, participants are asked to help develop a new provisional lexicon, a “Dictionary of Temporary Approximations,” by removing words that problematically tie “feminism” to an historical moment and suggesting new, of-the-moment replacements. The Dictionary of Temporary Approximations is a work that literally takes shape through its encounter with its viewers as they directly add to, excise, and amend our existing dictionary with their own suggestions and critiques.