LET US SPEAK NOW
a video archive on strategies for feminism, activism and art production
Is an archive of videotapes collected since 2002 that contain interviews/dialogues with women artists and activists who were part of the feminist movement in the seventies, and newer generations of women artists and activists that have a feminist approach to their projects or who are reflective on their position as a female artists or activists. By making this archive we wanted to map some ideas of women art production, examine particular feminist strategies through the years, and discuss how these strategies have been translated into current discourses and projects.
Andrea Creut and Kirsten Dufour started the project in August 2002 by presenting the Archive in LA: "Let us speak now" (LUSN) in Gallery 825 LAA, (825 North La Cienega Blvd. LA, CA 90069, August 22) where the questions for the interview were discussed, followed by 2 weeks video interviews in LA. Later in December they were continued in San Diego, Mexico and in London in the autumn together with Emma Hedditch including Women Slide Archive. In 2003 in N.Y. (Heidrun Holzfeind) and Chicago (with Ava Bromberg). In September 2005 a new Turkish collection of video interviews was collected in Istanbul (with Malene Ratcliff) and a French collection in May and October in Paris 2006 and spring 2007 (with Rhea Dahl and (Virginie Jourdain and Emilie Duval, curators of Revolt, she said, Rennes). In November and December 2009 we held the workshop ”The Living Archive”, with Utopiana developing the Armenian collection of LUSN.
Exhibitions:
Superfemmes in the exhibition: "Revolt she said," with MLF (Mouvement de la Liberation des Femmes) in Forde Independent Space for Contemporary Art, Geneva, Switzerland, February 2004, curated by Donatella Bernardi
”Jubil96um” which celebrated 96 years of Women artists in the 250 years Anniversary of the Royal Academy in Copenhagen at Q exhibition space, Copenhagen, April 2004
NWSA (National Women's Studies Association) conference in Milwaukee, USA, june 2004
One step forward two steps backwards seminar and exhibition in Yerevan, Armenia, september 2005
Revolte, she said at La Criée Centre d’Art Contemporain in Rennes, France, january 2006
Since March 2005 a video interview from the Archive has been shown once a month on the alternative, experimenting artist Tv station tv-tv in Copenhagen( www. tv-tv. dk (let us speak now editorial group))
The Archive will be part of Women International Film Archive, Cinenova in London administrated by Emma Hedditch
Today the LUSN collective consist of following members: Emma Hedditch (GB), Melissa Castagnetto (GB), Andrea Creutz (SW), Heidrun Holzfeind (A/US), Donatella Bernardi (S), Ava Bromberg (US), Salem Collo-Julin (US), Martha Rosler (US), Malene Ratcliff (DK), Rhea Gaardboe Dall (DK), Virginie Jourdain (FR) Emilie Duval (FR) Kirsten Dufour (DK) and Anna Barseghian( AM/CH).
Together, with other artists, we have already video interviewed more than 90 artists and activists in LA (US), London (GB), Chicago and N.Y. (US) Istanbul (Turkey) and Paris (France) and a few from Vienna (Austria), Costa Rica, Mexico, Switzerland and Beirut, (Lebanon). Yerevan (Armenia), Nepal and India.
The interviews are produced by the LUSN collective. The strategy is to develop satellites in different locations (countries and cities) and from there continuously to collect videos of women artist and activist to include in the Archive. In this way the Archive will develop as an open ended project. The purpose of the project is many facetted both in the process of producing and in reading the Archive. Since the videos all has been collected in a non-linear method through networking and a ’who suggest who’ fractal pattern structure.
Economy:
There has already been an strong interest in the Archive from different women studies in universities and Art institutions in France, Switzerland, Denmark and the US and but its important to understands that the video interviews can not be sold separately, only together as an Archive since they present a whole era of feminist history and should ”be read” or ”be viewed” this way with all the valuable differences and references to one another. Whenever the archive is sold the money will enter a fund, which will secure the possibility of developing the project. In this way the Archive will always expand and renew itself by including more female artists and activists from different regions and different disciplines.
The project “Let us speak now”(LUSN) has been funded continuously by DCA (Danish contemporary art center), the Danish Art Council and the State’s Art Fund.
Interview Questions to be concidered:

What are your approaches to feminist experiences through the years?
Which methods are being translated into current discourses and art projects?
How has the dialogue about gender identities and their construction developed, and what are the essential issues in gender construction today?
What can we do to prevent the term Feminist Art from being employed to ghettoize art?
How can we draw attention to that all art has a political dimension?
How can we see that strategies introduced within feminist theory and by the feminist movement – such as critical discourse, collaboration and multiple authorship, can promote social structures in society?
How can we challenge the unsettling development that these strategies are being exploited by new management cultures and turned into profit companies?
How can we resist commercialization of public space and increasing objectification of the human body?
How can we fight the negative outcomes of globalization such as human trafficking and the expanding exploitation of women’s bodies and sexuality?

speak to us now?