Acts Of Resistance: Photography, Feminisms And The Art Of Protest at South London Gallery

This group exhibition at the SLG, organised in collaboration with the V&A, brings together photography and film by eighteen artists who are working at the intersection of activist and feminist practice.

Overview

Photography has long been associated with acts of resistance. Throughout its history it has been used to document action, gather evidence, galvanise support and fight against injustice.

Acts Of Resistance focuses on work made over the past decade during which a ‘fourth wave’ of feminism is believed to have emerged. There is no singular 'feminism' united around one set of ideas and this exhibition explores a range of feminist practice. This includes work that displays an expanded commitment to understanding the overlapping nature of oppressions and examines the internet as a tool of protest, community building and transnational solidarity.

The activist approaches of exhibiting artists range from the stories they choose to tell, to the way they work including a sustained commitment to subjects and communities. In many cases the artists’ lived experience or biography inform their activism and their activism through life and art are intertwined. The artists on display use the camera in subversive ways, often critiquing photography’s limitations, and the ways in which it has been weaponised throughout history. This rethinking of photography is achieved through a process-based approach, for example through performance, collage or archives.

The exhibition is organised in four sections: Body as Battleground, Institutional Failure, Revising Histories and Feminist Futures. Throughout these thematics the artists in this exhibition ask: how might looking through the lens of gender reframe what justice looks like today?

Acts of Resistance will reflect on recent events from across the globe, such as anti-rape protests in Bangladesh responding to the rise in violence against women and girls in 2020; the US Supreme Court overturning of Roe vs Wade in 2022; as well as the ongoing protests against the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Artists include Laia Abril, Hoda Afshar, Poulomi Basu, Nan Goldin, Guerrilla Girls, Sofia Karim, Mari Katayama, Teresa Margolles, Sethembile Msezane, Zanele Muholi, Wendy Red Star, Tabita Rezaire, Raphaela Rosella, Aida Silvestri, Sheida Soleimani, Hannah Starkey, Tourmaline and Sasha Wortzel, and Carmen Winant.