Socialising Women
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This stop focuses on the alternative form of female relationships. That is strong, beneficial female friendships. Be Free and Erin Greer are both Melbourne-based, female artists who create whimsical, quirky artistic representations. Both women's art has strong links to ideas about the imagination and childhood. At this stop I would ask walking tour participants to consider the ways their embodied power was conditioned as a child, drawing upon Young's (1977) that the ways young girls are sanctioned to play in particular ways when they are young, directly links to the ways women occupy little space in later life.
I would argue that the works of Be Free, Baby Guerrilla, Lucy Lucy, and Kaff-Eine, with their strong focus on the whimsical and obscure are attempting to re-socialise people through their art. To remind people of innocence and wonder, and to create a social platform through which the voices of women can be heard.
Group discussion at this stop should focus on whether women are able to be re-socialise themselves so that they may infiltrate public space? Whether fun and whimsical art can transgresses women's normative social roles without a political message? If fostering confidence in young women is an effective way to combat patriarchy in art?