Thursday, 29 March 2018, 19:00h: After Carla Lonzi and Ketty La Rocca
With contributions by Claire Fontaine, Elisabeth Joris and Sally Schonfeldt

Claire Fontaine’s research and practice are profoundly influenced by the non-reformist spirits of Italian feminism in the 70s.
The very concept of a “human strike,” elaborated by the artist, is deeply connected to the analysis of processes of subjectivization and their link with the hidden productive and reproductive labor force that capitalism exploits without remuneration. Carla Lonzi, in particular, has been the subject of several texts written by the artist, such as “We Are All Clitoridian Women: Notes on Carla Lonzi’s Legacy,” in e-flux journal # 47 (2013); “Gallerie da non riempire,” in Il gesto femminista: La rivolta delle donne nel corpo, nel lavoro, nell’arte (Derive Approdi, 2014); “Carla Lonzi o l’arte di forzare il blocco,” in Carla Lonzi: La creatività del femminismo (Il Mulino, 2015).
Claire Fontaine has taken part in two events on the legacy of Italian feminism organized by Helena Reckitt: “Feminist Duration in Art and Curating” at Goldsmiths, 2015, and “Now You Can Go,” held at several venues in London in 2016. In the same year, at La Monnaie de Paris, she organized and coordinated the encounter “Work, Strike and Self-Abolition: Feminist Perspectives on the Art of Creating Freedom” with Julia Bryan-Wilson, Elisabeth Lebovici, Helena Reckitt, Marina Vishmidt, and Giovanna Zapperi. She was involved in the symposia “Speak Body,” on issues of reproduction and feminism, at Leeds University in 2017 and “Histories of Women, Histories of Feminism” at MASP in Sao Paulo in 2018.
In light of recent developments in the feminist movement, Claire Fontaine will explore the issue of emotional exploitation and the possibility of striking within the context of care work. The labor of love will be approached as one that is constantly submerged, an invisible effort undertaken by women to hold society together. This work is the secret core of capitalism, which thrives on its charity and generosity and, by denying its importance, threatens every workforce with the prospect of going unremunerated, perpetuating the lie contained in the supposed equivalence of time to salary and money in general.





Sally Schonfeldt (b. 1983 in Adelaide, Australia) lives and works in Zurich. Her work is predominantly concerned with the aesthetic possibilities offered by the contemporary discourse of artistic research. Using this discursive field of research as a foundation, Schonfeldt is concerned with interacting site-specifically in spatial environments to create informative, contemplative situations, which seek to enact alternative modes of experience within the production and reception of knowledge. The overriding impulse behind her work is the generation of alternative possibilities of interacting with history and the construction of new narratives in juxtaposition to accepted cultural orders.
For the occasion of “After Carla Lonzi and Ketty La Rocca,” Sally Schonfeldt revisits the extensive archive she built up during her work The Ketty La Rocca Research Project (2012), in which she first came across the radical feminist thought of Carla Lonzi. Interweaving the presentation of a short experimental archival film entitled Carla, Ketty + I, made especially for the occasion, with readings from her own diary The Ketty la Rocca Research Diary and Lonzi’s Shut up. Or Rather, Speak: Diary of a Feminist, Schonfeldt offers the audience a minor performative gesture to share her personal discovery of Lonzi through La Rocca.



Elisabeth Joris (b. 1946 in Visp, Switzerland), is a historian, who has conducted extensive research and produced numerous publications on Swiss women, feminism, gender equality, and Zurich in 1968. At Corner College, she will take part in a panel following Claire Fontaine and Sally Schonfeldt’s presentations.



Diese Veranstaltung ist Teil der Ausstellung From Abdizuel to Zymeloz von Donatella Bernardi. //
This event is part of the exhibition From Abdizuel to Zymeloz by Donatella Bernardi.


Die Ausstellung wird unterstützt von der Erna und Curt Burgauer Stiftung. //
The exhibition is supported by Erna und Curt Burgauer Stiftung.