Preston, Julieanna. THIS IS MY FEMINIST SURVIVAL KIT [sculptural object and text]. In 13.3%, [group exhibition] at The Project Space: WUHO, Los Angeles, California Dec 2010-Jan 2011, curated by Jayna Zweiman and Christain Stayner, 2011.
This is my feminist survival kit is a sculptural object that featured as part of the group exhibition 13.3%... at the WUHO Gallery, Pasadena, California USA (2010). According to curators Jayna Zweiman and Christian Stayner, the exhibition “13.3%… borrowed from the conceptual structure of curator Lucy Lippard’s landmark 1973 exhibition of conceptual art, c. 7,500, in which each work on display fit into a standard manila envelope. Lippard’s exhibition contested the belief that there were no women making conceptual art at the time — and she did so by mailing evidence of this work directly to the gallery for display. Nearly forty years later, 13.3%… provides a space and form in which to consider the contributions and visibility of today’s practicing female architects.” (http://architecture.woodbury.edu/wuho/?p=91)
This is my feminist survival kit operates as a spatial provocateur to the potential of what such a tiny space can hold and incite. The anticipation generated by a mere glimpse of the matchbox’s interior contents begs questions about the viability of matches - what they can do, if they are dry, who might use them and if matches inhabit the box at all. The matchbox is inhabited by a wad of string, a length of thread, a ball of beeswax, a timber wedge/shim, a needle, a band-aid, a coil of wire, an elastic band, a piece of soap, a paper clip and a coin. Hence, speculation is raised on what such ordinary materials can do – what danger or risk they can activate and what situations they can ameliorate.