Reproductive Labour
09 Feb - 26 Mar 2011
REPRODUCTIVE LABOUR
An exhibition exploring the work of Cinenova
9 February – 26 March 2011
Reproductive Labour is an exhibition that centres around the films, videos, politics and discussions that make up Cinenova – a volunteer-run, charitable organisation dedicated to preserving and distributing the work of women/feminist film and video makers.
In the exhibition Reproductive Labour, Cinenova’s films, videos and paper materials will be worked on and displayed in a number of ways. Invited selectors have nominated a work from the collection that will be featured daily (see The Showroom’s online calendar for more information and updates). Bringing these together with a series of screenings and events, this will be a rare opportunity to watch and research pivotal works from the history of feminist, black, queer and experimental film and video, and together consider how they activate the present.
Through the course of the exhibition, we encourage you to use the Cinenova catalogue and paper archive to find out more about certain films and videos, and to select titles that you’d like to see during the exhibition. Please request the tape or DVD from one of us - workers from Cinenova and The Showroom will be in the space at all times - and we will set it up for you. In some cases, the only existing copy of the film is a film print, and is being stored elsewhere, but we will try to help where possible. You may photocopy some of the paper materials on the machine, please ask the person present to help. Please be careful, especially with the paper materials and the posters.
If you would like to organise a discussion or screening in the space or elsewhere please email the Cinenova working group at info@cinenova.org.uk. We would love to hear your ideas and to help where we can.
Cinenova was founded in 1991 following the merger of two feminist film and video distributors, Circles and Cinema of Women. Each was formed in the early 1980s in response to the lack of recognition of women in the history of the moving image. Both organisations, although initially self-organised and unfunded, aimed to provide the means to support the production and distribution of women’s work in this area, and played critical roles in the creation of an independent and radical media.
Cinenova currently distributes over 500 titles that include experimental film, narrative feature films, artists’ film and video, documentary and educational videos made from the 1920s to the present. Cinenova holds a large collection of paper materials, books and posters related to works it distributes, and the history and politics of film and video production. The thematics in the work at Cinenova include oppositional histories, post-colonial struggles, domestic and care work, representation of gender and sexuality, and importantly, the relations and alliances between these different struggles.
Faced with closure since 2001, due to lack of funding, Cinenova has been run by volunteers dedicated to the constellation of films, histories and politics that make up Cinenova, believing in the necessity of keeping the collection together and autonomous, rather than dispersed into larger and more general archives or distributors. In 2009 these volunteers became a more formalised ‘working group’. Reproductive Labour, organised by the working group, intends to make public and urgent Cinenova’s actual situation with regard to its ability to preserve, promote and distribute the work in the collection.
Reproductive Labour presents the case of Cinenova as a site that gives rise to reflections on the desires and problematics that arise through collective cultural work, along with the practicalities and labour involved in maintaining such an organisation. These reflections have been crucial to the thinking of the exhibition, where we hope to make visible, and thereby transform, these processes.
Whilst our current landscape is vastly different to that of Cinenova’s beginnings - on the one hand the demise of the ‘new social movements’ especially the feminist movement; and on the other a revolution in media technologies – the continuous presence of Cinenova is a collective and critical project which intends to provide tools and meeting points in the present. The exhibition Reproductive Labour is informed and inspired by the content and structure of Cinenova and how it offers us an important angle on history.
An exhibition exploring the work of Cinenova
9 February – 26 March 2011
Reproductive Labour is an exhibition that centres around the films, videos, politics and discussions that make up Cinenova – a volunteer-run, charitable organisation dedicated to preserving and distributing the work of women/feminist film and video makers.
In the exhibition Reproductive Labour, Cinenova’s films, videos and paper materials will be worked on and displayed in a number of ways. Invited selectors have nominated a work from the collection that will be featured daily (see The Showroom’s online calendar for more information and updates). Bringing these together with a series of screenings and events, this will be a rare opportunity to watch and research pivotal works from the history of feminist, black, queer and experimental film and video, and together consider how they activate the present.
Through the course of the exhibition, we encourage you to use the Cinenova catalogue and paper archive to find out more about certain films and videos, and to select titles that you’d like to see during the exhibition. Please request the tape or DVD from one of us - workers from Cinenova and The Showroom will be in the space at all times - and we will set it up for you. In some cases, the only existing copy of the film is a film print, and is being stored elsewhere, but we will try to help where possible. You may photocopy some of the paper materials on the machine, please ask the person present to help. Please be careful, especially with the paper materials and the posters.
If you would like to organise a discussion or screening in the space or elsewhere please email the Cinenova working group at info@cinenova.org.uk. We would love to hear your ideas and to help where we can.
Cinenova was founded in 1991 following the merger of two feminist film and video distributors, Circles and Cinema of Women. Each was formed in the early 1980s in response to the lack of recognition of women in the history of the moving image. Both organisations, although initially self-organised and unfunded, aimed to provide the means to support the production and distribution of women’s work in this area, and played critical roles in the creation of an independent and radical media.
Cinenova currently distributes over 500 titles that include experimental film, narrative feature films, artists’ film and video, documentary and educational videos made from the 1920s to the present. Cinenova holds a large collection of paper materials, books and posters related to works it distributes, and the history and politics of film and video production. The thematics in the work at Cinenova include oppositional histories, post-colonial struggles, domestic and care work, representation of gender and sexuality, and importantly, the relations and alliances between these different struggles.
Faced with closure since 2001, due to lack of funding, Cinenova has been run by volunteers dedicated to the constellation of films, histories and politics that make up Cinenova, believing in the necessity of keeping the collection together and autonomous, rather than dispersed into larger and more general archives or distributors. In 2009 these volunteers became a more formalised ‘working group’. Reproductive Labour, organised by the working group, intends to make public and urgent Cinenova’s actual situation with regard to its ability to preserve, promote and distribute the work in the collection.
Reproductive Labour presents the case of Cinenova as a site that gives rise to reflections on the desires and problematics that arise through collective cultural work, along with the practicalities and labour involved in maintaining such an organisation. These reflections have been crucial to the thinking of the exhibition, where we hope to make visible, and thereby transform, these processes.
Whilst our current landscape is vastly different to that of Cinenova’s beginnings - on the one hand the demise of the ‘new social movements’ especially the feminist movement; and on the other a revolution in media technologies – the continuous presence of Cinenova is a collective and critical project which intends to provide tools and meeting points in the present. The exhibition Reproductive Labour is informed and inspired by the content and structure of Cinenova and how it offers us an important angle on history.