Hannah Starkey says: ‘The wonderful thing about getting older and going through menopause is that you leave the male gaze behind. And that’s truly liberating. You can’t really sell me anything. And I am dangerous; Because I can tell you the truth!”
A piercing, dangerous honesty and a completely liberated female gaze are features that reappear in Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminism and the Art of Protest, a major exhibition at the South London Gallery in conjunction with the V&A. Crossing continents and generations, this exciting group show aims to unite ideas about image-making and dissent, offering a visual manifesto for the fourth wave of feminism.
While Katayama was working as a jazz singer, a customer once shouted: ‘A woman who doesn’t wear high heels is not a woman.’
Belfast-born Starkey, 53, presents a trio of prismatic, large-scale “abstract portraits”. The works belong to a larger series commissioned last year to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. The photographs pay tribute to a generation of dove activists, women, who were instrumental in Northern Ireland’s peace process. Three portraits feature Anne Carr, part of the Good Friday agreement team; Bronagh Hinds, co-founder of the Women’s Coalition; and activist, actor and playwright Margaretta Ruth D’Arcy – who ran a women’s pirate radio station from her kitchen in Galway in the 1980s and was jailed for protest graffiti in 1981.
Starkey grew up in Belfast during the 30-year Troubles. “I saw the strength of women and the courage to speak out,” she says, speaking from her studio in east London. “Women had the ability to get away with this shit. “I wanted to remind the younger generations how strong women can be by exemplifying what women have achieved in my own country.” It couldn’t be more timely: Starkey cites research showing that women are more likely to succeed and endure when they are involved in peace negotiations.
The portraits were made using simple props and colored glass. “I didn’t want to traumatize anyone with the camera,” explains Starkey. After photographing exclusively women for nearly three decades, he is aware of how critical women can be about their own image. The photographs were staged to make the women visible without subjecting them to scrutiny. Moreover, these are not deliberately exaggerated representations that we are used to seeing in galleries and museums. “A good image appeals to everyone,” says Starkey, whose portraits convey a sense of collective power. “This is about what women can achieve when they come together.”
This feeling continues throughout the exhibition. Alongside groundbreaking artist activists known for their advocacy for marginalized communities like Nan Goldin, Guerilla Girls, and Zanele Muholi, there are also young practitioners like Laia Abril, whose work is the result of intense research and interviews with women. survived abuse and abortions; and Poulomi Basu, who collaborates with women living in rural communities in India.
Among the young artists in the exhibition is Sethembile Msezane, who takes the idea of collaboration one step further with live performance works. Msezane’s photograph Chapungu: The Day Rhodes Fell is a celebration of the day the Cecil Rhodes statue was removed from the University of Cape Town. This is staged in the show and provides a dramatic entry point into the exhibition. In the work, a masked female figure dressed in a black leotard, her outstretched arms adorned with ornate wings, stands in a majestic pose on a pedestal, rising above the crowd as they hold their phones up to capture the moment. In the background, a statue is being lifted by a crane.
This exciting footage documents what Msezane calls “apparition”; this is a lively work carried out during the removal of the statue of the former prime minister of the Cape Colony following months of protests in 2015. He says the Chapungu, a Zimbabwean bird, came to him in a recurring dream.
“It was really difficult to negotiate between me and the bird in my body,” the artist recalls, speaking by phone from Cape Town. “I was so scared; I wasn’t sure what I was doing, why I was there, or why I felt such an urgent need to do this job. But I knew it was the bird working through me, and I didn’t need to know all the answers. As I stepped onto the pedestal, my consciousness shifted; “I’m not the person in that picture.”
The grueling piece took less than four hours. “When I got off the pedestal, I felt very tired, very thirsty, and I was shaking,” he says. In a second image, So Long a Letter, also included in Acts of Resistance, Msezane portrays a mother holding a crocheted doll made of hair. They stand next to the African Renaissance Monument in Dakar; is a 171 ft bronze statue located atop a hill overlooking the capital. The statue has sparked controversy since its installation in 2010. “The big man is holding the woman and her child,” says Msezane. “But the reality in many African countries is that women are the ones who keep society going, work and educate. The statue does not symbolize that.”
We see Katayama confidently strut through dimly lit industrial corridors in her vibrant red, sky-high heels.
In the giant statue, the baby points west. “Are we saying that the future of Africa lies in the west?” says Msezane, whose expression is very different. The crochet doll sculpture features the doll holding hands so they appear to be looking at the ground. “The future is right here in Africa,” she explains. “We, as young people, have to create a legacy to be proud of.”
Msezane does not call her work feminist: she identifies more with African knowledge systems and neo-animism, a spiritual practice that posits a connection between animals, plants and humans. “I think these are the ideologies that feel more solid to me as an African woman working and living on the continent.” But she adds: “We don’t live in a vacuum; women’s issues and concerns are similar all over the world.”
Acts of Resistance aim to decolonize feminism and present a more pluralistic idea of a women-led movement. It also demonstrates the value of photography as a powerful tool of protest; it can be distributed quickly and free of charge, can be accessed from anywhere, and can reach a global audience no matter what language they speak.
Mari Katayama began taking self-portraits consisting of hand-sewn objects she had made in her childhood. She took photographs to share the designs she carefully prepared on Myspace and Mixi. Now Katayama finds himself once again in his small room at home in rural Gunma, Japan. There she is working on her largest hand-sewn object to date. “Sometimes I am told that my work is a fantasy world or a setting for my own dream stories.” He sighs. “I’m sick of hearing that. Whenever I talk about feminism, I always think: ‘We have that; rights, equality and freedom, of course.’ But when I look at my life later, it always disappoints me that this is not the case.”
Katayama, who has prosthetic legs, worked as a singer in a jazz bar while he was a student. One night, she was cornered by a customer who shouted, “A woman who does not wear high heels is not a woman.” While high heels are a polarizing symbol for feminists—the tired oppression or empowerment debate—for Katayama, high heels weren’t even an option. So in 2011, Katayama embarked on a mission to create a pair of high heels in which she could perform and design prosthetic joints that would allow her to do so comfortably.
In 2022, his vision was finally realized with Italian luxury shoe designer Sergio Rossi. Two photos showcase custom-made “Mari” shoes. A movie called My Way was recently shot at another factory in Japan called Nabtesco, where electronically controlled prosthetic knee joints are designed and manufactured. In the film, we see Katayama confidently walking through dimly lit industrial corridors in her vibrant red, sky-high heels.
The Acts of Resistance mark a turning point in the evolution of feminism: an approach that is more inclusive, less Western-centric, and still has plenty of fire in it. Combining these forces to be reckoned with, the show is a space to observe and highlight the ways in which women continue to be vulnerable and struggle. Msezane thinks it’s also “an opportunity to understand where it went wrong and where it can go right.”
• Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminism and the Art of Protest is at the South London Gallery in London from 8 March to 9 June