In 2018, curator Katherine Taft began studying an exhibition on ecofeminism. Ecofeminism emerged in the 1970s from the environment, feminists, social justice and anti-nuclear activities.
The movement resists traditional systems of patriarchy and capitalism that advocate for conquering women and exploiting nature. It advocates for collaboration, recognizing human dependence on the ecosystem and respecting all life as sacred.
However, in the 1990s, critics accused them of stereotyping and misidentifying ecofeminism, which falsely equated women with nature. The repulsion caused the movement to rest. After that, Tuft noticed the shift. The Covid-19 pandemic and Black Life Matter protests shed light on social and environmental justice and led to the re-emergence of ecofeminism.
“People are using the term again and are excited to embrace ecofeminism as their approach,” Taft, assistant director of the Brick Gallery in Los Angeles, said in a video interview. As a result, she said she reconstructed the show with a focus on the present and the future, and reconstructed ecofeminism “as a vast strategy for survival in 21st century life.”
Taft's exhibition “Life on Earth” opened on February 28th in The Hague, Netherlands. At the same time, Tefaf Maastricht's focus initiative presents two historical and contemporary ecofeminist artists. Together, these shows illuminate many aspects of this evolving movement.
Juliana Seraphim
From bringing ecofeminist exhibitions to Freeze London in 2024, Richard Salton Gallery dedicated a Tefaf Maastricht show to surrealist artist Juliana Seraphim, who in a news release called “the early pioneer of contemporary ecofeminist discourse.” Born in Jaffa, southern Tel Aviv in 1934, Seraphim fled to Lebanon when the Arab-Israel War broke out in 1948. As a painter, she was criticized by fellow Palestinian artists for not working on their cause.
“Juliana was more focused on women's liberation,” Niam Coglan, director of Richard Saltun Gallery, said in a video interview. “She felt that women were the most beautiful forms and the most sensitive and empathetic creatures on the planet. That's what she wanted to paint.”
After passing away in 2005, Seraphim saw a world tainted by war, inequality, harsh living conditions and heartless social interactions. She wanted to show people what she called the “women's world” infused with love, beauty, sensitivity and entanglement with nature.
In her work, The Eye, Seraphim depicts a woman wearing insect wings and a transparent dress that covered capillaries, gliding through a stone hoodoo-like building. “Dance of Love” depicts the sinking machine and building beneath the shape of a woman bouncing off the flower, in pink swirls and stylized snakes. In “Flower Woman,” the sphinx-like woman's head wraps around the petals and seahorse, butterfly wings cascade their backs, and flowers fill their chests. All three pieces are included in the Maastricht show.
“You can see her playing in the way that the environment is human,” Coglan said. “We created a divisive point that humans and nature are very different. But they are the same. Juliana was interested in pulling them back.”
Gjertrud Hals
When Norwegian textile artist Gjertrud Hals casts for inspiration, her mind captures the female culture and the elements of environmental destruction she witnesses. Growing up on a remote island in Finnoya in the 1950s, she witnessed overfishing that caused the collapse of the fish and whale population and forced many families, including her, to leave Finnoya.
While living in a Norwegian fjord, Hals saw a nearby waterfall being captured due to water power. A year later, she and her husband launched a successful campaign to save the basin from being saved. At the same time, the related push of feminist marching in the 1960s and the promotion of women's crafts to Hals motivated to learn feminist quotes.
Today, Hals said she was not political. However, the ecofeminist theme subtly saturates her solo exhibition at Tefaf, presented by Gallery Maria Wetterglen. Her fishnet-like paper containers evoke the shapes of the shells and uterines, celebrating the feminine traditions of textile art and the indirect speaking of femininity and nature. “On the one hand, they're vulnerable. On the other hand, they're strong,” Hals said in a video interview.
Nodding to the interconnectedness with nature, Hals confuses nature and humans created. She made shoes from the roots and drew them on the little human heads molded from Japanese mulberry bark.
In “Golden,” a weaving of copper nets “catch” Golden herring and other animals, and Hals cuts from inside a Norwegian caviar mayonnaise tube, questioning the value that was placed in a living world. “After the Storm” offers a hopeful message, with the shells and pearls appearing to have been washed away by the wire net. “We are in a political situation not only in Norway but Europe and in general,” Hals explained. “And I hope one day it will take some time after the storm.”
Life on Earth
In his curation of Life on Earth: Arts and Ecofeminism, which debuted last fall in Los Angeles bricks and is on display at the Hague Museum until July 27th, Taft aimed to portray ecofeminism as a cross-movement. She also wanted to inspire hope amidst the multiple planetary crisis. “Part of my job is to work together and show that finding a community where you can make a difference really makes a difference,” she said.
Therefore, the 24-hour online/inperson symposium on ecofeminist art will accompany you on the show on March 21st. It continues from the Sun, from the Loop Gallery in Seoul to the West Den Hague and Bricks, which covers a community of participants from around the world. In West Den Haag, the exhibition features nearly 20 artists from Colombia and Nigeria, many of whom combine an eco-friendly lifestyle with art.
The Art Collective Queer Ecology Institute presents a video of the caterpillar ch crown to envision how capitalist extractionism depletes nature and maximizes profits. Artist Yo Ewu created a soundscape and underwater map to document the experience of learning sustainable seafood harvests from female free divers in Jeju Island, Korea.
Leslie Labowitz-Starus' installation was born from the 40-year art life eco-feminist project “Sproutime.” It combines industrial business, education in the farmers market, performance art and installations. In The Hague, she juxtaposes buds, soil and posters from women's peace march, explains how war destroys and contaminates the soil, leading to food insecurity.
The show told viewers in a video interview that “an opening to view the world from a feminist perspective, it concerns care, nurture and not offensive.” “We say there is another way to be in the world, and our consciousness must evolve.”
