OPPOSITIONAL GAZE: BLACK FEMINIST PHOTOGRAPHY AS FEMINIST RESISTANCE

The is excited to announce their Summer term of amazing online weekly feminist lectures!

We welcome guest lecturer Janine Francois to explore the resistant strategies Black Women and Queer imagemakers employ to challenge the colonial and patriarchal gaze.

CLASS DESCRIPTION

bell hooks, celebrated author, theorist, educator, and social critic, used the term ‘oppositional gaze’ to describe the resistant strategies Black Women and Queer imagemakers employ to challenge the colonial and patriarchal gaze. In their lecture ‘Oppositional Gaze: Black Feminist Photography as Feminist Resistance’, Janine Francois will use this term to analyse how photography has been used to both reinforce stereotypes and to reclaim self-identification through the work of Black female artists.

Janine will help understand how the colonial use of photography reinforced damaging stereotypes about Black people’s sexuality to justify their racial and gendered hierarchies. She’ll then delve into the practices of Sonia Boyce, Zanele Muholi, Favour Johnson and Khadija Saye who all use photography to frame the Black female and or queer subject through self-representation, storytelling, humour, and critique; with each artist challenging the supposed ‘neutral-white-male-human-subject by centring Black Women and Queer identities.

ABOUT OUR LECTURER

Janine Francois is a Black Feminist-Killjoy, Writer, Academic in Exile, Time Traveller, Cultural Producer and a Consultant. Janine is a Visiting Lecturer at Royal College of Art and Ph.D student at Tate Britain and the University of Bedfordshire.

INSTAGRAM: @itsjaninebtw

WEBSITE: itsjaninebtw.com

Banner image credit: Marcia Michael

UPCOMING SESSIONS WITH THE FEMINIST LECTURE PROGRAM

Monday 20th May
Lucy Brownson (she/her) and Matilde Manicardi (she/her)
Building It Ourselves, Building It Together: A History of Queer and Feminist Community-Building Through Housing Activism

Monday 27th Mat
Jasmine Reimer (she/her)
Feminist Monsters: Transformation and the New Weird Divine

Monday 3rd June
Nicola Hill (she/her)
Visions, Veils And Virgins: A Short History of Epilepsy Through the Lives of Extraordinary Women

Monday 10th June
Kate Robinson (she/her)
An Introduction to Textiles as a Feminist Discourse

Monday 17th June
Joanna Sperryn-Jones (she/her)
Breaking As Making: Women Artists Employing Breaking, Violence and Destruction

Monday 24th June
Hettie Judah (she/her)
On Art And Motherhood: The Construction of Perfection and its Feminist Subversion

Monday 1st July
Luisa-Maria MacCormack (she/her)
Ana Mendieta: Soil, Dirt and the Body as Art

Monday 8th July
Janine Francois (she/her/they/them)
Oppositional Gaze: Black Feminist Photography as Feminist Resistance

Stay tuned in to be the first to hear about our Autumn term!

RECORDING

A recording of the lecture will be sent out by The Feminist Lecture Program after the event finishes, within 2 hours of the end of the class. This email will also contain any resources/reading list the lecturer shares.

Please add [email protected] to your email contacts to ensure you receive the recording as expected.

Please note that the recording will expire 7 days after sending.

PAY WHAT YOU CAN

Everyone is welcome to join this Pay-What-You-Can class. We suggest a donation of £20, however, we understand that may not be possible for everybody. Please be honest and pay what you can afford so that we can continue to offer our sessions on a donation basis.

MORE FLP…

Can’t get enough? The Feminist Lecture Program has our very own digital archive, where you can find some of the best past lectures from our back catalogue to rent and watch ON DEMAND. Check out our ever growing collection here: https://thefeministlectureprogram.vhx.tv/

Follow us on Instagram @thefeministlectureprogram

And check out our sustainable merch from FLP Studio at https://feministlectureprogram.com/shop & @flp__studio

And that's it!

We're really looking forward to you joining us x

Event Venue

Online