Columbia College Chicago to Open Revolution at Point Zero: Feminist Social Practice

News Office Staff / Feb 27, 2017

From 'Longest Walk.' Photo: Evan Prunty

CHICAGO (Feb. 28, 2017) – Columbia College Chicago’s Department of Exhibitions, Performance and Student Spaces (DEPS) presents Revolution at Point Zero: Feminist Social Practice at the Glass Curtain Gallery. The exhibition will be open March 10 through April 24 and is a featured program of the annual socially-engaged art conference Open Engagement, hosted this year in Chicago.

Curators Neysa Page-Lieberman and Melissa Hilliard Potter credit Revolution at Point Zero as the first exhibition of its kind to position the feminist art movement as the progenitor of contemporary socially-engaged art. Revolution is also the springboard for a comprehensive publication and on-going research towards a traveling exhibition, which reframes socially-engaged art, using intersectional feminist-centered theory for defining the field of social practice at large.

“Revolution at Point Zero reclaims the feminist movement’s collaborative, inclusive, community-based strategies as central to the field of social practice, and we are thrilled to consider this in Chicago, arguably ground zero for the movement,” says Page-Lieberman and Potter.

The exhibition features women-identified, North American artists whose work focuses on radical acts of the personal and political. Selected work includes live performance by Marisa Jahn’s The Careforce, choreographed and performed by activists of the domestic labor movement; Megan Young’s large-scale works used in protests around the nation; new media installation of Las Nietas de Nonó’s participatory theatre of untold narratives about reproductive health in Puerto Rico; and Laura Anderson Barbata’s burlesque performance with Fem Appeal subverting gender roles and re-envisioning history. The exhibition also features recent work by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, one of the pioneers of the social practice movement, entitled Snow Workers’ Ballet.

Programming includes live performances at the opening reception, public events on the Wabash Arts Corridor and artist-led workshops. This program is bolstered by a partnership with Open Engagement along with a half-day symposium on the topic featuring artists, scholars, activists and curators from around the country.

Artists include:
Laura Anderson Barbata with Fem Appeal, Mexico City and New York City
Marisa Jahn, New York City
Las Nietas de Nonó, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Megan Young MFA '15 with Angela Davis Fegan MFA ’14, Cleveland and Chicago
Mierle Laderman Ukeles, New York City

Revolution at Point Zero: Feminist Social Practice
March 9–April 24
Curators: Neysa Page-Lieberman and Melissa Hilliard Potter
Glass Curtain Gallery
1104 S. Wabash Ave., 1st floor

Opening Reception:
March 10, 5–8pm

Feminist Social Practice Symposium
Friday, April 21
2–4 p.m.
Film Row Cinema
1104 S. Wabash Ave., 8th floor

More details on the exhibition and featured programs at: colum.edu/revolution

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