The Cité internationale des arts, in partnership with the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir and as part of the Festival d'Automne 2023, is presenting the group exhibition Défricheuses: féminismes, caméra au poing et archive en bandoulière.

The exhibition looks back at the cultural and visual history of feminism in France in the 1970s and 1980s through the founding in 1982 of the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir by 3 women - Delphine Seyrig, Carole Roussopoulos and Ioana Wieder, members of the collective Les Insoumuses. Their videos, along with videos by other filmmakers and feminist collectives, documenting and participating in them, provide a map of the struggles of the time.

Défricheuses : féminismes, caméra au poing et archive en bandoulière offers a vision of the fight for women's emancipation by comparing these images, filmed and broadcast thanks to the first video cameras and portable video recorders, with different practices by contemporary artists, some of whom are still active today, Martha Wilson, Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki, Myriam Mihindou, Nil Yalter, Rada Akbar, Bouchra Khalili, Zanele Muholi, Saddie Choua, Lili Reynaud Dewar and Paula Valero Comín, have been or are currently resident at the Cité internationale des arts.

As a laboratory of ideas and a place of artistic mobility par excellence, the Cité internationale des arts, with this project, is presenting the plurality in all its forms of the visions held by people who identify as women. Feminism, and in particular ecofeminism, will be in the spotlight in Défricheuses: féminismes, caméra au poing et archive en bandoulière, which continues the dialogue between generations of feminist video-makers and artists whose history can be traced back to that of the Cité internationale des arts and the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir.

More information on the event can be found here.