Feminist Artivism: Curating Women’s Memory

Abstract In an age controlled by silence, imposed by the far-right regimes, artivism has become one of the most efficient means of expression, committed to the pursuit of justice. This article deals with alternative artivistic spaces/archives that subvert the dominant, shake the solid and reveal different voices. They are attempts that have emanated from the systematic efforts to marginalize new voices and theories, not to mention histories. The three spaces/exhibitions that are explored in this paper represent new forms of archiving through artivism. Since the archive has long been a contesting arena of memory, the three exhibitions chronicle another memory, an alternative one. These three exhibitions, made and curated by women, are: Doing well, don’t worry, organized in Cairo by Women and Memory Forum (WMF) in May 2017, Harem Fantasies, New Shehrazades curated by the late Moroccan Fatima Mernissi (1940-2015) in Barcelona (2003); and Kurdish Women Warriors that was held in 2018 in the University of Goethe in Frankfurt. This article deals with these exhibitions as spaces of appearance where memory and archiving become the principal tools of resistance.