S&F Public Lecture: Suzanne Lacy: Between Feminism and Social Practice

5.45pm: Doors

6pm: Public lecture by Suzanne Lacy: Between Feminism and Social Practice

Reflecting on five decades of a singular practice in which she questions the subjects and aesthetics of performance art and how it operates in public, Suzanne Lacy presents a brief historical review of her work as well as recent projects. Lacy explores the connections between feminism and performance art, first introduced via mentors Judy Chicago and Allan Kaprow. Focusing on ethics, communication, and new art forms, she argues that contemporary social practice art draws heavily on feminist practices, including consciousness raising, expanding audiences, inclusion strategies, and naming the political in the personal.

6.45pm: In-Conversation between Suzanne Lacy and Lana Locke

Responding to the lecture, Lana Locke joins Suzanne Lacy in conversation to reflect on the trajectory of Lacy’s practice—from individual performance to social practice—and to consider the urgent questions confronting artists engaged in feminist social practice today.

7pm: Q&A

7.15pm: Closing

Suzanne Lacy is a Los Angeles-based artist and a pioneer of socially engaged public performance art. Her installations, videos, and performances deal with sexual violence, rural and urban poverty, incarceration, labor, and aging. Lacy’s large-scale projects span the globe, including England, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Ireland, and the US. In 2019, she had a career retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Her project initiated in 2019, Uncertain Futures, has explored intersectional issues on paid and unpaid work through the lens of women over 50, focusing on gender, age, race, disability, and class and its final exhibition presents the concluding element of an immense collaborative work combining art, research, and activism on view at the Manchester Art Gallery. She is a professor at the Roski School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California and a resident artist at 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica -CA.

Lana Locke’smaterially embedded art practice engages lived experience through a feminist lens, reflecting on broader social and ecological conditions. She co-convenes the Subjectivity & Feminisms (S&F) Research Group at UAL, which examines how visual art, performance and research practices engage with gender, race, sexuality, disability and age, and how such work can shape public discourse and social change. She is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Camberwell College of Arts.

Cover image: Joana P. Cardozo