Wind, Rewind: Women Behind the Lens

Inspired by one of Visons lead artists Tina Keane, the Nunnery Gallery and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) present an evening exploring women’s – and in particular Keane’s – influence on the development of moving image and film art. The evening will begin with a screening of Keane’s works Hey Mack (1982) and Deviant Beauty (1996), with a discussion to follow led by the QMUL film department. Chaired by Dr. Jenny Chamarette, panelists include artist Diann Bauer (who will be unveiling a new commission on the Queen Mary campus for Visions), Denise Robinson, independent curator and writer, and Richard Dyer, co-author of Electronic Shadows: The Art of Tina Keane (Peter Wollen & Richard Dyer & Jean Fisher).
Keane’s performance and film first came to critical attention in the 1970s, following the experimental light shows she used to stage for the likes of David Bowie and Pink Floyd. She went on to co-found the non-profit women’s film distribution organisation Circles – Women in Distribution, as well as taking part in and programming exhibitions of significance, such as The New Pluralism at Tate in 1986. Keane’s influence on successive generations of artists has been great, including Tracey Emin, Tim Noble and Sue Webster.
Tina Keane’s films are presented in partnership with England & Co Gallery, distributed by LUX.
Tina Keane is lead artist for Visions Programme 1, which includes her works Deviant Beauty (1996) and Couch (2003). Three programmes will present an international overview of some of the most exciting and boundary-pushing digital art, showing over 60 international artists selected from over 1,000 submissions. Read more
Jenny Chamarette is Senior Lecturer (equivalent to Associate Professor) in Film Studies at Queen Mary, University of London. She has published widely on art cinema, experimental film and artist’s moving image in contemporary visual and moving image cultures in Europe, North America and the Middle East, adopting a feminist phenomenological approach to the ways we can sense and understand the moving image. She is Co-Investigator of the AHRC funded project, The Legacies of Stephen Dwoskin, which explores the digital and material archives of the artist-filmmaker Stephen Dwoskin in collaboration with the BFI, LUX, and the Universities of Reading, Glasgow and Sheffield. She is also currently at work on her second monograph, Cinemuseology: Museum Vitrines, Digital Screens and Cultural Politics.
Diann Bauer is an artist and writer based in London. She is part of the working group Laboria Cuboniks who wrote Xenofeminism: A Politics of Alienation and the collaborative A.S.T. whose’s focus is speculative urbanism and climate change. Bauer has screened and exhibited internationally at Tate Britain, the ICA and The Showroom, London, The Sharjah Biennale 13, UAE, Deste Foundation, Athens, The New Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park, New York, History Miami Museum and Art Center South Florida, Miami. She has taught and lectured widely at universities and cultural institutions including: Cornell University, Yale University and Cooper Union (US), HKW (Germany), DAI (Netherlands), Ashkal Alwan (Lebanon), Goldsmiths, The Baltic, The Tate and the ICA (UK). She has recently finished a commission with Queen Mary University of London and the Nunnery Gallery for a temporary public video installation as part of Visions Programme 2 in the Nunnery. In addition she is working towards an exhibition at FACT in Liverpool with Arts at CERN that will subsequently travel on to Barcelona, Nantes, Brussels and CERN.
Denise Robinson is an independent curator and writer in London, since 1996 arriving as Visiting Fellow Tate Britain 1996. As Director, Arnolfini Bristol curated: first major exhibition of the works of Tracey Moffatt in Britain; Eija-Liisa Ahtilla; introduced artists films to the cinema program. Previously Director, George Paton Gallery, Melbourne and Director, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, foregrounding moving image work, and women artists working with photography. Gretchen Bender; Samuel Beckett – Teleplays; Paz Errazuriz – La Manzana de Adan and Eugenio Dittborn, Chile; Further curatorial work included Cyprus Pavilion, 52nd Venice Biennale – Haris Epaminonda and Mustafa Hulusi.  She has published internationally as a critic and essayist, presenting papers/film screenings at international events.  Editorial work includes: Transgression and the Culture Industry – curated the forum and film program; catalogue, Cyprus Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2007; Conference reader, ‘Realities in Raw Motion’, Cyprus. Amongst her many essays: Susan Hiller, Contemporary Art & Anthropology’; Pier Paolo Pasolini, Cinema and the Death Drive. She has been a regular contributor to Camera Austria since 2003. Amongst other awards she was the recipient of a senior fellowship from Museums Australia.
Richard Dyer is Editor in Chief of Third Text and a Contributing Editor to Ambit literary magazine. He is a widely published art critic, reviewer, poet, fiction writer, practicing artist and musician. His critical writing has appeared in Third Text, Contemporary, Frieze, Flash Art, Art Review, Art Press, The Independent, The Guardian, and many other publications and catalogues. He co-authored the first monograph on Tina Keane, Electronic Shadows: The Art of Tina Keane (Black Dog Publishing, 2004). His other publications include: Identities/Identiteetit: ‘On the Construction of an Artistic Identity through Diverse Practice’, (Royal Academy Publications, 2012); Ben Turnbull: Truth Justice and the American Way (The Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster University, 2012) and Magne Furuholmen: In Transit: ‘Alpha Beta’, (Forlaget Press, 2013). The major monograph Making the (In)visible in the Work of Mark Francis, (Lund Humphries) was published in 2008. His monograph on the UK based artist Wolfe von Lenkiewicz was published by Anomie Publishing, (2016). He has conducted interviews with Gilbert and George, Nicholas Serota, Euan Uglow, Gregory Crewdson, Sara Lucas, Andres Serrano, Issac Julian, Yinka Shonibare, Fred Wilson, Raqib Shaw, Georgina Starr and Adam Fuss among many other leading contemporary artists. Dyer is a long-standing member of AICA (International Association of Art Critics), he gave the opening keynote speech ‘Breeching the Integument between Making, Looking and Writing’ at the 45th AICA Congress at the University of Zurich in July 2012, and the lecture on contemporary critical writing at the AAH (Association of Art Historians), July 2013.
Tickets £6/4 (full price/concessions – inc. students, over 65s and Bow Arts artists)
Book tickets
Please note that this event will take place in the Great Hall, People’s Palace, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS.
Image: Tina Keane, still from Deviant Beauty (1996, 10 minutes) © Tina Keane, courtesy England & Co.
Travel information
Nearest station(s): Mile End, Stepney Green
Bus: 25, 205, 339, 277, N205
Parking: Resident parking can be found after 5pm Monday-Friday, free parking is available on the weekends
Bike: Bicycle parking is available on Queen Mary’s campus. The nearest Santander Cycles docking station is on 2 Antill Rd, London E3 5BS