Practice in Dialogue is a group of artists dedicated to examining their art practices in the context of the formal structures and strategies of historical feminist artworks. Co-founded by Rose Gibbs and Catherine Long in 2014, Practice in Dialogue evolved out of a need to create a space in which to think critically about ongoing feminist activism and contemporary art practices. Practice in Dialogue has bi-monthly meetings currently hosted by Gasworks.

Participating artists include: Frederica Agbah, Miriam Austin,  Ingrid Berthon-Moine, Cécile Emmanuelle Borra, Phoebe Collings-James, Rose Gibbs, Lora Hristova, Ala Jazayeri, Catherine Long, Ope Lori, Anja Olofgörs, Minna Pöllänen,  Lauren Schneider, Martina Schmücker, NT, Karis Upton and Samiya Younis. Please visit our biographies page to learn more about their practices.

Past participants include: Alison Ballance and Abigail Smith. Practice in Dialogue meet on a bi-monthly basis and provide each other with critical support and peer mentoring.

Past Events:

In Whose Eyes? - Beaconsfield Gallery, Vauxhall, London
3rd July - 5th August 2018 

Miriam Austin | Ingrid Berthon-Moine | Cécile Emmanuelle Borra | Phoebe Collings-James | Rose Gibbs | Lora Hristova | Catherine Long | Ope Lori | Anja Olofgörs | Lauren Schneider | Martina Schmuecker | NT

Taking the act of looking as a starting point, In Whose Eyes? explores questions of female subjectivity, representation and power in contemporary Western culture. Who is made visible – or excluded – and how they are represented in culture is highly political and impacts on people’s lives in numerous intersectional ways.
Practice in Dialogue is a group of artists dedicated to examining the formal structures and strategies of historical feminist art alongside their own art practices. How can feminist art intervene in dominant culture when the conditions of female representation are so overly determined by the constraints of objectification, sexualisation, violence and racism?
In Whose Eyes? is a collaborative exhibition by Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall and Practice in Dialogue jointly curated by Beaconsfield, Rose Gibbs and Catherine Long.

 https://beaconsfield.ltd.uk/projects/in-whose-eyes-practice-in-dialogue/
















We all Have a Problem with Representation – The Showroom, 63 Penfold St, London NW8 8PQ, 
17 November 2016, 6.30-9pm
Practice in Dialogue present an experimental evening of work-in-progress performances and video work interspersed with the opportunity for drinks and conversation. We all have a problem with representation looks at the difficulties of determining self-representation in a culture that continues to present the female body for the masculinised gaze. In differing ways, the artists explore the rejection of objecthood and the positioning of the self as a thinking being in today’s culture.

​Performances:

1.  Always - A spoken performance starting in the knickers. Ingrid Berthon-Moine

2.  Letting go of subconscious guilt, negativity, worries, anxiety, bitterness, frustration and resentment - A performed therapeutic experience.  Abigail Smith

3.  Mother/Daughter Performance of movements - A performance of some movements. Rose Gibbs (and Alba)

  Break

​4. Bring your heels! [More than a Woman pt.2] This is an invitation to walk the catwalk and celebrate womanhood and sisterhood. So put on your heels, but if you have none barefoot is also fine!!!!!!!!!  - NT

5. Arthritic dances - A performance by Catherine Long drawing on personal experience of multiple surgeries. Catherine Long

6. Well Spent - A performance based on correspondence and notes written whilst producing recent textiles and drawing work. Alison Ballance

​7. Throat of Flesh - A participatory Reading performance.  Rose Gibbs

Video Works:

1. Meat Abstracted (2015) -  A woman stiches meat into objects. 1 hour Catherine Long

2. Les Flaneuse (2002) -  A film by Phoebe Blatton, Cécile Emmanuelle Borra and Maria Georgoula. 16mns 

3. Beak Breast (2012) - Made using a specially designed prosthetic sculpture, Beak Breast emerged from an investigation of the relationship between ritual, myth, ecological fragility, and the politics of the body, drawing on specific folkloric narratives from British and Moari tradition. Digital Video (1 minute loop) Miriam Austin


www.theshowroom.org/
https://www.theshowroom.org/events/practice-in-dialogue

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Speeches For Becoming – Friday Salon, ICA, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
 12 August 2016, 2- 5pm.
 
Practical session with Practice in Dialogue led by Rose Gibbs and Catherine Long.
 
In this Friday Salon participants explored the voice and speech-making as a tool for feminist activism, drawing from Hannah Arendt’s notion that speech is only possible as a part of a group and is a specifically human way of answering to violence. 
 
The event takes its cue from the speech-making workshops of the East London Federation of Suffragettes in 1912 where working class women practiced giving speeches in private before taking their concerns into the public realm: to be able to speak up for oneself and for the collective rights of marginalised groups has always been vital for social movements.
 
Building on Sylvia Pankhurst’s understanding that speech-making takes practice and development, the workshop focused on the importance of speech and dialogue to the women's movement and feminist art practices. Using a selection of feminist speeches and texts as a starting point, the participants were invited to explore different modes of speech making and investigate how to make and perform speeches.
 
The participants were invited to read feminist texts and speeches aloud, both collectively and in turns. Following the readings, the participants were invited to critically analyse the speeches and discuss what remains current and necessary now. The group also collectively considered what should be added to the texts in order to reflect issues that face women and feminists today. This workshop was developed out of Gibbs' participatory performance 'Throat of Flesh'

https://archive.ica.art/whats-on/friday-salon-speeches-becoming


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Feminist Practices in Dialogue,  group exhibition, ICA, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
18 December 2015 2-6pm
 
Practice in Dialogues first exhibition together foregrounded the importance of art and feminism as lived practices that have the potential to unsettle hegemonic structures. Avoiding the pitfalls of dominant heteronormative culture is not easy and, as such, the emphasis of the exhibition was on feminist art practices as an ongoing work-in-progress that calls for continual self-reflection and critical analysis. Curated by Rose Gibbs and Catherine Long.

https://archive.ica.art/whats-on/feminist-practices-dialogue-0

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​We Are Anti-Capiphallists, panel discussion, ICA, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
18 December 2015, 6-9pm
 
This discussion focused on the challenges feminist art practices faces in the current climate of neo-liberal ideology. Chaired by Helena Reckitt, the discussion was concerned with the ways in which which feminist artworks can intervene in cultural representations and resist recuperation by patriarchal ideology.
 
https://archive.ica.art/whats-on/we-are-anti-capiphallists-feminist-art-practices-dialogue
 


Feminist Practices in Dialogue 01, publication launch ICA, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
​18 December 2015
 
For their first publication, each artist produced an artwork made for the page, alongside two introductory essays by Rose Gibbs and Catherine Long. The limited edition publication was launched at the ICA in 2015.
 
Stockists: ICA, Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, South London Gallery, Banner Repeater.
 
https://archive.ica.art/bulletin/subtle-abyss-visual-representation-and-feminist-art-practices

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Please do get in touch with us: [email protected]


Image Credits from the top: Rose Gibbs, Leytonstone 2005/2015, Phoebe Collings-James, Mother Tongue Mother Master (video still), Cécile Emmanuelle Borra, Les Flaneuses, Catherine Long, Meat Abstracted (Tails),  Ope Lori, After Newton, Ingrid Berthon-Moine, I'm Anti-Capiphallism