Desire Change, Contemporary Feminist Art in Canada

Edited by Heather Davis

The vision expressed in Desire Change Contemporary Feminist Art in Canada reveals a practice that, in common with its international counterparts, is overtly political. Throughout the book’s 14 essays we are introduced to artists, historians and curators whose forms of cultural expression focus specifically on contemporary feminisms and their articulation within gendered art practices. While cultural workers having a clear feminist agenda have for decades now been a significant component of Canada’s art practice, to date there has been no comprehensive, critical assessment of their contribution. Heather Davis’s Desire Change seeks to address this oversight and, as such, presents a longawaited study of the intersection of feminism and contemporary art practice in Canada. As editor, Davis has brought together a group of writers, all of whom espouse an activist agenda and a desire to make change. This perspective serves as a unifying force that underlies the intelligent and challenging essays that, taken together, shed light upon a broad range of issues—among them, decolonization, race and gender.

This recently launched volume was initiated by Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA), a small, artist-run centre that, since its founding in Winnipeg in 1984, has become a highly influential exponent of women’s art practice from a feminist perspective. It undertook extensive fundraising activities to facilitate the book’s publication, and selected Davis, a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University, to act as editor. The partnering of MAWA and Davis has resulted in a rich collection, offering a variety of insights into feminist art practices over the last 25 years. One of the primary strengths of the book is that Davis has taken great care to include a diversity of feminist expressions, including a broad range of voices informed by the intersection of many different cultures and experiences.

The structure of Desire Change is both interesting and effective. The book opens with an introduction by Davis in which she clearly sets out her intention. She states, “This book is long overdue and responds to the call that the resurgence of feminist thought in the last decade demands. It asks, who are we now and who would we like to become.” Next, Davis makes clear her understanding of the areas of concern that she views as being most representative of contemporary feminist expression, and provides context for consideration of these by consigning all but one of the essays to one of three key sections: “Desire: Intersections of Sexuality, Gender, Race”; “Desiring Change: Decolonization”; and “Forms of Desire: Institutional Critique and Feminist Praxis.” Each of these sections opens with an editor’s preface or, in Davis’s words, a “proposition,” in which she sets out an overview of the issues that are to be addressed in the essays that follow. Overall, the three sections are in turn framed by two pieces of historical importance. The first, “A Past as Rich as Our Futures Allow: A Genealogy of Feminist Art,” an essay by art historians Kristina Huneault and Janice Anderson, is particularly valuable as it establishes a solid, historical context. In reviewing the essays themselves, it is apparent, too, that the editor has extended her commitment to diversity well beyond its reference to feminisms. It is equally reflected in the selected essayists, women drawn from across the country, whose understandings have been shaped by a multiplicity of cultural and social experiences. There are academics, curators and artists engaged with practices as varied as photography, performance, installation and textiles. These include Karin Cope, Alice Ming Wai Jim, Jayne Wark, Therese St. Gelais, Ellyn Walker, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Sheila Petty, Jenny Western, Kathleen Ritter, Noni Brynjolson, Amy Fung, Cheyanne Turions, Amber Christensen, Lauren Fournier and Daniella Sanader.

The book concludes with an appendix featuring a timeline drawn up by artist Gina Badger. Developed from responses Badger received to a survey sent out to a personally selected group of more than 100 individuals, this timeline provides a highly detailed chronology of feminist art infrastructures in Canada, reaching back to the early 1960s.

The book also underscores the significance of community to feminist cultural work. As writer Rebecca Solnit observes in an essay from 2017, “A Short History of Silence,” one of the key coping strategies for feminists is to come together and make community in order to “tend and befriend.” Such communities nurture individuals and ideas and provide the solidarity that contributes to change making. There can be little doubt that those who join together to break silences make the future more accessible for those to come.

Before moving to Winnipeg in the late 1990s and joining MAWA, where I served twice as mentor for emerging women artists, I taught a course on Art and Feminism in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Ottawa. The course required hours of preparation, researching and assembling readers of material for analysis and discussion. At that time, less than two decades ago, it was a challenge to find enough Canadian feminist content for the course. I cannot help but reflect upon how much easier this task would have been had this fine book been available.

Davis’s book is a vital addition to both Canadian art history and to the histories of feminisms in Canada. It will certainly be an invaluable reference for academics, students and artists seeking to understand the diverse complexities of feminist art, but should also be on the must-read list of anyone desiring a more complete understanding of contemporary Canadian art. ❚

Desire Change, Contemporary Feminist Art in Canada, edited by Heather Davis, McGill University Press and Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art, 2017, 328 pages, $49.95.

Susan Close is an associate professor in the Department of Interior Design, Faculty of Architecture, and a Senior Fellow in St. John’s College, both at the University of Manitoba.