Feminist reading group. Adelina Moya, Aimar Arriola, Xabier Arakistain and Leire Vergara

Bulegoa z/b is launching a new reading group initiative within the E.G.B. line of research. These reading sessions have a dual objective: to revise texts that chart contemporary thought and try out new ways of producing meaning through collective reading. Each group requires the commitment of its participants, who will read and contribute their reflections during the sessions.

The first group is organised via an invitation to various people to select feminist texts that they regard as fundamental within their respective practices. This group, coordinated by feminist researcher Maider Zilbeti, will hold two sessions on 12 and 13 March with propositions from Adelina Moya and Aimar Arriola (on the 12th) and Xabier Arakistain and Leire Vergara (on the 13th).

Sessions: Monday and Tuesday, 12 and 13 March, 2012 – 18:00

Venue: Bulegoa z/b. Solokoetxe 8 bajo, 48006 Bilbao

To receive the selected bibliography and take part in the feminist reading group, write a mail to: bulegoa@bulegoa.org

Adelina Moya. Doctor in History and Permanent Lecturer at the Fine Arts Faculty of Bilbao, voluntarily retired. Has published numerous catalogues for exhibitions she has curated, alone or in collaboration, including Art and Basque Artists in the 1930s (1986); Maria Paz Jiménez (2001); José Alemany, memory and forgetfulness (1993); Nicolás de Lekuona, image and testimony to the Avant Garde (2003); Sala Stvdio. An artistic adventure in Bilbao of the Postwar period (2007). She has written the books Nicolás Lekuona y su tiempo. Orígenes de la vanguardia artística en el País Vasco, Electa, 1994 and José Mª Ucelay, Museo Esteban Vicente, Segovia, 2007 and has published a whole number of articles about women artists: Mari Puri Herrero (cat., 1985); Ana Román, en el jardín (cat. BBK, Bilbao); Miren Arenzana (cat. BBK, Bilbao, 1993, in collaboration with Ana Arnáiz); Maria Paz Jiménez” (Sala Koldo Mitxelena, in collaboration with Ana Olaizola); “Claude Cahun” (in Javier San Martín (ed.) La fotografía en el arte del siglo XX. Diputación de Vitoria); “Imágenes de la diferencia. Autorretratos de mujeres Artistas” in &cétera. Revista del Aula de letras UC, 2008. For four years she belonged to the Editorial Board of ZEHAR; participated in different judging panels for competitions in the Basque Country: Certamen de Artistas Noveles guipuzcoanos, Gure Artea, Beca Juan de Otaola de Basauri, Ertíbil, etc.; formed part of the scientific committee of the I Congreso Internacional Jorge Oteiza, in October 2008, where she presented the paper “Rupturas y restauraciones. Jorge Oteiza en la Tradición Moderna”, recently published in Oteiza y la crisis de la Modernidad. Fundación Jorge Oteiza y Cátedra Ídem. She also recently published “Oteiza y Alberto. Un modo de entender la función del Arte”, in Forma, signo y realidad. Escultura española. 1900-1935. Alzuza: Fundacion Museo Jorge Oteiza. At the Faculty of Fine Arts she introduced the subjects “Photography-Art Relations” and “Women and Art”.

Aimar Arriola. Curator and researcher. Studied within the Programa de Estudios Independientes (PEI) at the MACBA (Barcelona) and the Curatorlab of the Konstfack University (Estocolmo). As an independent agent he has developed projects of curatorship, investigation and/or education at CA2M, Madrid; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Hangar, Barcelona; and Espacio Abisal, Bilbao, among others. Has participated over recent years in various initiatives around the themes of feminisms / queer politics / artistic practices, including: coordination of the reading group If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution (sala Rekalde, Bilbao, winter 2008-09); the collective investigation El arte después de los feminismos, directed by Beatriz Preciado (PEI/MACBA, 2008-09); the show-archive Peligrosidad Social. Minorías deseantes, lenguajes y prácticas en los 70-80 en el Estado español (PEI/MACBA, 2010); as well as specific actions involving the production, exhibition and/or editing of artists including Begoña Muñoz, Jeleton, Susana Talayero, Itziar Okariz, Azucena Vieites and Miguel Benlloch. Is currently co-driver of sporadic encounters *L’occasione* (http://loccasionecon.tumblr.com/) and is a member of the researchers’ platform Equipo re (http://equipo-re.org/).

Xabier Arakistain has been director of the Centro Cultural Montehermoso Kulturunea, a pioneering centre in the development and application of gender-equality policies in the fields of contemporary art, thought and culture, from December 2006 to December 2011. Previously, Arakistain carried out a range of projects, including the exhibition Trans Sexual Express (1999) which incorporated the sex quota as a curatorial criterion, and which explored the cultural construction of the categories of sex, gender and sexuality in the production of art in the Basque context of the time. In 2000, along with Rosa Martínez, the exhibition was expanded to include other contexts, and it was shown in other venues. Between 2001 and 2003 he was in charge of the paritarian programme at the exhibitions hall of the Fundación Bilbao Arte Fundazioa, and, from 2003 to 2006, he directed the debates on art and feminism at the forums of contemporary art experts at the ARCO fair. In 2005 he headed the Manifiesto Arco 2005, which demanded that public administrations adopted practical measures to implement equality between the sexes in the field of art, which was seconded by a great many women working in this sector and inspired the article 26 of the Spanish Law of Equality. Xabier Arakistain has also curated retrospective shows devoted to the U.S. collective Guerrilla Girls and to the British artist Leigh Bowery, as well as the shows Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, 45 years of Art and Feminism (Museo de BBAA, Bilbao), Para todos los públicos (Sala Rekalde, Bilbao) and Switch on the Power (MARCO, Vigo; C. C. Montehermoso, Vitoria; CAM, Gran Canaria). At Montehermoso he has curated exhibitions such as The Furious Gaze (co-curated with Maura Reilly), Living Together. Estrategias para la convivencia (co-curated with Emma Dexter) or What I See. Susan Hiller (co-curated with Beatriz Herraez). Additionally, Arakistain has given lectures on his work and on the relationship between art and feminism at the MAK in Vienna, the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the University College of London, the EHESS in Paris, the Universidad de las Islas Baleares or the UCLM. Xabier Arakistain took a degree in Social Sciences and Media Studies at the UPV/EHU, with a research paper on sex, gender and sexual identities in film, and also holds an MA in Film Studies from the same university.

Leire Vergara. Independent curator who lives and works in Bilbao. Has formed part of Bulegoa zenbaki barik since 2010. From 2006 until 2009 worked as chief curator at Sala Rekalde. Between 2002 and 2005 with Peio Aguirre she co-directed the D.A.E. production structure (Donostiako Arte Ekinbideak) in Donostia-San Sebastián. At present, she is undertaking the doctoral programme Curatorial/Knowledge at the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, University of London (London), and at the University of the Basque Country’s Department of Audiovisual Communication.