Session The Radical Outdoors: Betsy Damon’s feminist performances and eco-justice collaborations in the U.S. and China
Session ID #9460
Chairs: Monika Fabijanska, Independent Art Historian and Curator
Dr. Christine A. Filippone, Millersville University
2022 College Art Association Annual Conference
Friday, March 4, 2022, 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (online only)
Presenters:
Monika Fabijanska, Independent Curator
Out In the Open: Betsy Damon’s Street Performances and Transnational Social Practice
Petra Poelzl, Independent Researcher, Vienna, Austria
The reception and impact of Betsy Damon’s Keepers of the Waters in China (1995) and Tibet (1996)
Dr. Christina Filippone, Millersville University, US
From Social Justice to Eco-Justice: Feminist Collaboration in the Work of Betsy Damon
Rong Xie, Independent Artist, London UK
A Journey with Water: Betsy Damon in China
Abstract:
Lucy Lippard jokingly called artists who deal with pollution and waste “Garbage Girls.” These ecofeminists challenged the definition of art and proposed a truly radical genre – the art of repairing environmental damage. Betsy Damon has worked globally to preserve living water using social justice tools: activism and community-building, both central to her feminist practice since the 1970s. A leader among lesbian activists in New York City, she co-edited the third issue of Heresies, Lesbian Art and Artists (1977). Her early performance work addressed the erasure of women’s narratives from history and their unspeakable subjects: mutilation and rape. Performing outdoors in the streets, her collaborative approach, and engagement with transnational feminism, all informed her social practice focused on water. In the mid-1990s, she organized Keepers of the Waters, collaborative public performances with local artists in China and Tibet. An early example of transcultural socially engaged art, Keepers of the Water left an indelible mark on avant-garde art in South-West China and led to her award-winning eco-art project Living Water Garden in Chengdu, a six-acre city park demonstrating water purification through natural processes.
Betsy Damon is among the most relevant pioneer feminist artists today and there is a growing interest in her practice globally. Papers in this session will discuss Damon’s feminist collaboration (Dr. Christine Filippone) and radical outdoor performance (Monika Fabijanska) as the basis for later projects of social practice and eco-justice. Petra Poelzl’s paper and Rong Xie’s film will consider Damon’s influence on generations of Chinese artists and activists.