The conclusion of the documentary reminds viewers that feminism’s fight is far from over — the film is part of a larger project that seeks an interactive continuation of this story. The director explains at the end of the film that the 12,345 minutes of footage not included the film are available for free at a website affiliated with the Stanford University Libraries. A second website was created as part of the project, the RAW/WAR portal, invites all women artists to upload their work to keep documenting the history of female art. “One could tell many stories with this particular footage, and one of the solutions was to put everything online so that you could see all of the 400 hours in the archive,” says Hershman-Leeson. “People can look through it and create their own stories and assumptions. [The film] was just a particular linear narrative that had to do with my own experience, more like a memoir. … It is not encyclopedic. This is just one very small example of how that information can be organized.”
She concluded the interview with F Newsmgazine by saying, “The film itself is not the end. It’s really just the beginning of more communication about what this movement was and what it can do and what people can do to add to it.”
Hershman-Leeson does not have plans for other projects involving this footage — from now on, it’s open for public use.
The Other Part of the Project
To offer an analysis of the project as a whole, F Newsmagazine visited the Stanford Libraries portal hoping for an opportunity to dive into this wonderful footage. What is available on the website is not the actual video footage, but transcripts of the unedited interviews with artists that, in most cases, are the same ones appearing on the documentary. The website provides, as well, a large catalogue of the actual physical tapes and images that are available to the public through a specific request to the university.
“External Transformations: Roberta’s Construction Chart, No. 1” 1975.Courtesy of Lynn Hershman-Leeson.
The RAW/WAR portal, on the other hand, is built on user contributions. The extremely eclectic community-curated collection, currently listing 168 artworks, includes footage and images of the work of Isabella Rossellini, Barbara Kruger, Aretha Franklin, Georgia O’Keeffe and Alice Neel, just to mention some, as well as an episode of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” that speaks about gay marriage and a performance of “I Will Survive” by The Muppets’s Miss Piggy in a YouTube
based archive.
Despite the alarming eclecticism of the RAW/WAR portal, both display extremely interesting work and the opportunity for women artists to recognize each other and unite forces in their fight, which is still far from being over. “Equality. Women aren’t treated equally. They aren’t shown in the same degree and their work is not valued as highly, so there is still a lot of work to do,” affirmed Hershman-Leeson when asked what is still left to achieve by women artists.
Indeed, the available footage is solid gold raw material for endless projects in different disciplines, and the merits of Hershman-Leeson’s overall project are unquestionable. Hopefully it will continue to grow in even more interesting directions.
Resources:
View the trailer, clips, and news about !Women Art Revolution on the film’s official website
See the complete interview videos, transcripts and biographies of the women featured in !Women Art Revolution on Stanford’s Digital Collections Archive
This looks like such an interesting project and it will be incredibly valuable for the study of feminist art. Unfortunately, I am unable to see the film as it hasn’t been released in the UK so thank you so much for posting the link to the other interviews!
As you rightly point out in this article, there is still so far to go to achieve genuine equality in the art world. Things have improved, but not as much as we sometimes think they have…
Another great article!!! Keep up the good work F!