Five (failed) attempts at a feminist revolution

This discussion will draw upon histories, or at least stories, of performance and other transient art practices by women in Toronto from the late 70's to the present. Instances and questions about performance, re-performance, and re-embodiment have special significance for feminist practitioners. Performance art has also had an important effect on how we approach contemporary art, and how performative gestures infuse contemporary institutions. The unruly bodies of women and performance artists have made work outside, inside alongside, in opposition to and in complete ignorance of the mechanisms and institutions for the collection and exhibition of contemporary art. The world famous artist-run centre movement of Canada developed in part in order to allow publics to intersect with this work and other new and otherwise marginal practices. Throughout the 80's feminist artists continued to work in anew forms and forge new contexts; the Womens' Cultural Building is an example. Subsequently the archive of the WCB was exhibited, and the construction of this exhibition may be an interesting case study. I replaced the word ephemeral with the word transient in the title of this discussion because as many times as I have heard performance art referred to as ephemeral, I've never quite believed it. Fairies and wood nymphs are ephemeral, posters, leaflets and flyers may be ephemeral, my car keys are ephemeral – but performance is corporeal "meat joy", and sometimes demanding, and therefore its intersection with an institution is protean

Maternal perceptions of father involvement among refugee and disadvantaged families in Beirut, Lebanon

The role of fathers in (co-)parenting their children among refugee and disadvantaged families in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) remains poorly understood. This study sought to examine the associations among mothers’ perceptions of their husband’s involvement (hereafter referred to as paternal involvement), and her perceptions of her own well-being and a number of other variables, as well as observed mother-child interactions in families living in refugee and disadvantaged communities in Beirut, Lebanon. We analyzed baseline data from 104 mother-child dyads (mean age of children = 4.34 years; range = 2.05 to 7.93 years of age) who participated in a randomized controlled trial aimed at evaluating the impact of the Mother-Child Education Program in Beirut. In addition to the mother’s perception of paternal involvement and the videotaped mother-child interactions, data were collected concerning the mother’s well-being and her level of social support, as well as her level of stress as a parent and the way her children were disciplined in the family. Mother-child pairs were videotaped while completing a puzzle together and dyadic interactions were coded. Path analysis showed that paternal involvement was significantly associated with a higher level of maternal well-being and lower distress levels. In addition, higher levels of maternal distress were associated with higher levels of harsh discipline and parenting stress. Correlation analysis showed that higher perceptions of paternal involvement were associated with more positive affect displayed by the child, more positive regard for the child, and better mother-child synchrony during the dyadic interactions. Limitations include the cross-sectional design and the modest sample size, which hinder causal inferences and generalizability of the findings. These preliminary findings suggest that higher levels of paternal involvement may have an impact on markers of maternal mental health and positive mother-child interactions in families living in disadvantaged communities or humanitarian settings. Paternal involvement should be considered when designing and implementing parenting programs in LMICs

Johanna Householder : Videoclips: An Annotated Bibliography in Real Time

"Since the end of the 1970s, Johanna Householder uses performance, video and diverse techniques as a means for cultural diversion. As a feminist collective member The Clichettes from the 1980s, she participated in the establishment of the challenge as a viable medium for cultural criticism. Householder is also the founder and co-director of 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art in 2014. Recently. she presented the performances at the M:ST in Calgary, at Art Nomade in Chicoutimi and at Undisclosed Territory and Solo in Indonesia. She co-edited in 2004 Caught in the Act: An anthology of performance art by Canadian women with Tanya Mars and the second volume More Caught in the Act, in 2015. She is a professor in the Faculty of Arts at the OCAD of the University of Toronto." -- Publisher's website

More Caught in the Act : An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women

"The long-awaited second volume, More Caught in the Act: an anthology of performance art by Canadian women is an indispensable compendium of original research and writing on, and images of, Canadian women in performance art covering work made from 1990 to 2010. Like the first volume, Caught in the Act: an anthology of performance art by Canadian women (2004), this book gives readers a first-hand glimpse into this vibrant and largely under recognized subject in contemporary Canadian art history. More Caught in the Act includes 29 comprehensive profiles of artists from across the country, along with five contextual essays that place current performance strategies by women within broader art historical and cultural contexts." -- Publisher's website

Rita McKeough : Works

"This critical monograph documents Rita McKeough’s collaborative artistic process and pedagogy from the late 1970s on; her interactions with visual and media arts communities in Halifax, Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary, particularly alternative music and performance scenes; and the audio, installation and performance work that is her ongoing contribution to the contemporary Canadian art community. Includes vinyl record with five audio works from installations and performances—Shiver (1995), Opponent and My Heart Beats too Fast from In bocca al lupo/ In the Mouth of the Wolf (1991), Lament from Dancing on a Plate (1991), Veins(2016) and one new composition, Ashes (2017). A limited number of the publications include an artist multiple by Rita McKeough that references The Lion’s Share (2012), an exhibition which incorporated kinetics, performance, and sound, and used a humorous and dream-like scenario to raise questions about the complexities of our relationship to eating animals." -- Publisher's website