News

Feminist Manifestos Continue to Challenge the Status Quo

 New School News, January 9, 2019

Gabriela López Dena spent months searching through dozens of feminist manifestos written over centuries by feminist activists, artists, and writers, that boldly state their demands and advocate for change. López Dena, a Vera List graduate student fellow, art and social justice, ultimately selected 23  manifestos that she determined were relevant and meaningful enough to be performed by a diverse group of women from across the New School community, including students, professors, administrators, alumni, and maintenance staff.

Feminist Manifestos was presented as a two part public program in December and López Dena was chosen by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics to curate the event as part of their freedom of speech seminar series.  The first part of the program featured the women chosen to read and perform these manifestos, in selected spaces across the university. While the manifestos were created in many countries throughout different eras, they all had one thing in common: challenging patriarchal oppression throughout history.

“Feminist Manifestos is important as it anchors the freedom of speech seminar series in The New School campus: each reading was precisely situated in a specific location and inscribed into its history, the demands of a particular manifesto that was relevant to that site,” said Carin Kuoni, the Vera List Center’s director and chief curator. “For instance, it was exhilarating to hear Gaby (López Dena) read in Spanish outside President Van Zandt’s office, the Zapatista Women’s opening address to the First International Gathering of Women in Struggle, written by Insurgenta Erika on behalf of other milicianas of various ranks.”