Eva Weinmayr

Eva Weinmayr is an artist, teacher and researcher investigating the border crossings between contemporary art, radical education and institutional analysis by experimenting with modes of queer and intersectional knowledge formation.

Eva Weinmayr currently works as researcher at HDK-Valand, Academy of Art and Design, University of Gothenburg. She lectures at Goldsmiths College London (MA Art and Politics), London College of Communication (MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures), Central Saint Martins (BA Fine Art: "Art, Publishing, Activism from an Intersectional Perspective").

She has been Visiting Lecturer at Parsons/The New School (New York), Ontario College of Art (Toronto), Cologne University, Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Royal College of Art London, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Arts (Bremen), Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures – FHNW (Basel), Piet Zwart Institut (Rotterdam), Rietveld Academy/Sandberg Institute (Amsterdam).

She works with public art and activist spaces (SALT (Istanbul), MayDay Rooms (London), Showroom (London), Kunstverein München) and established museums and art institutions (National Art Gallery Warsaw, Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis, Foundation Sitterwerk St Gallen). She published with art publishers such as Rhizome, Spektor Books, Hatje Cantz, Sternberg Press, Occasional Papers, Open Editions, BookWorks London as well as with scholarly presses, for instance, with MIT Press MA (US), Open Book Publishers Cambridge (UK), Centre for Curatorial Studies CCS Bard.

In 2020 Eva Weinmayr completed her doctoral thesis Noun to Verb: an investigation into the micro-politic of publishing through artistic practice (HDK-Valand, Gothenburg: ArtMonitor, 2020). This practice-based inquiry explores the social and political agency of publishing by investigating the micro-politics of making and sharing knowledges from an intersectional feminist perspective. There has been much discussion of the political agency of the book as a medium, yet it is often assumed that the book's political potential extends primarily, indeed if not exclusively, in terms of its content. The focus of this inquiry, however, is the potentially radical, political and emancipatory ways and processes by which a publication is made (authored, edited, printed, bound), disseminated (circulated, described, catalogued), and read (used). The research explores intersectional feminist strategies of publishing by asking: What if we understood publication not as a finite object? What if we gave attention and value to the processes and practices that lead up to a publication? How can collective processes of publishing themselves be a tactic to practically intervene, disrupt and change existing knowledge practices? (2022)

Current projects

Ecologies of Dissemination – decolonial knowledge practice, feminist methodology, open access. (With Femke Snelting, 2022–24). Funded by the Swedish Research Council. In partnership with Constant Association of Arts and Media, Brussels, and the Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University. This collaborative artistic research project explores potential strategies of dissemination that acknowledge the tensions and overlaps between feminist methodologies, decolonial knowledge practices and principles of Open Access. Invested in collective art and knowledge practices, we are concerned with how the current drive to openness in dissemination policies might overlook relational aspects. How can we develop non-universalist policies, agreements, frameworks, licences that consider that there might be ethical reasons to refrain from release and re-use?

Teaching the Radical Catalogue–A Syllabus. (With Lucie Kolb, 2021–22). Part of the long-term project Reading the Library. In partnership with Kunstbibliothek und Werkstoffarchiv Foundation Sitterwerk, St. Gallen and Critical Media Lab at the Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures, FHNW, Basel (CH). “Teaching the radical catalogue – a syllabus” interrogates the prevailing practices of classifying and organizing knowledge in libraries of the Global North. Drawing on Emily Drabinski’s article “Teaching the Radical Catalog” (2008) the project develops a study and research program that investigates the politics of naming and framing and the practices of searching and finding in libraries from an intersectional and decolonial perspective.

Teaching to Transgress Toolbox, (Project lead, 2019–2022) EU-funded Strategic Partnership between HDK-Valand Göteborg, École de Recherche Graphique (erg Brussels) and Institut Supérieure des Beaux Arts (ISBA Besancon). The project is a collective research and study programme setting out to develop insights and tools to make our higher education institutions more inclusive, with an aspiration to create intersectional and decolonial pedagogies with a focus on the arts. (2022)

Recent projects

Let’s Mobilize: What is Feminist Pedagogy? (Co-organiser, HDK-Valand, 2015–16) A long-term study group (Rose Brander, Andreas Engman, MC Coble, Kanchan Burathoki, Gabo Camnitzer, Eva Weinmayr) on intersectional pedagogies and non-normative forms of learning and teaching inside and outside the university. The group investigates questions of diversity, equality, racism, critical whiteness, citation and feminist media culminating in a three-day international mobilisation at HDK-Valand and the publication of a workbook: Let’s Mobilize: What is Feminist Pedagogy?.

AND Publishing (Co-founder, London 2010, ongoing). A collaborative publishing activity with artist Rosalie Schweiker.

The Piracy Project (with Andrea Francke, 2011 - ongoing) explores the philosophical, legal, and social implications of book piracy. It questions common-sense assumptions about ownership, authorship, and the implications policy development has had on the current debate around intellectual property. Through an Open Call for pirated books and our research into pirate book markets in Peru, China, and Turkey, The Piracy Project gathered a collection of around 150 copied, emulated, appropriated and modified books from across the world. Their copying approaches vary widely, from playful strategies of reproduction, modification, and reinterpretation of existing works, to circumventing enclosures such as censorship or market monopolies, to acts of piracy generated by commercial interests.

Exhibited at: Paper Struggles, Raven Row, London, 2019. Resource, The Bluecoat Liverpool, 2015. Kunstverein Munich, 2014. Glasmoog, KHM Academy of Media Art, Cologne, 2014. Grand Union, Birmingham, 2014. Books from the ships, Oslo 10, Basel, 2013. SALT Research Istanbul, 2012. The Grand Domestic Revolution Goes On, The Showroom London, Casco Utrecht, 2012. Truth is Concrete, Steirischer Herbst, Austria, 2011. KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2011. New York Art Book Fair, MoMA PS1, Queens, 2011.

Boxing and Unboxing (with Rosalie Schweiker, 2018) was developed at the invitation of curator Jenny Richards at Marabouparken Konsthall in Stockholm. During a six-month research residency "Acts of Self-Ruin" based on Leela Gandhi’s book The Common Cause (2014) the project explored the struggle for collectivity and equality in an age of individualism. Through a range of activities, a two-week boxing club, workshops, public talks and a publication the project investigated whether sparring, when defined as physical play and not as competition, might allow us to rehearse ways to relate to each other in other areas. As a moment of intense negotiation of border space and contagion, as a nonverbal bodily dialogue, sparring transgresses boundaries that we elsewhere seek to protect. During sparring, I deliberately forgo this established immunity – my contours become vulnerable through the mutuality of the touch: my fist touches and is being touched at the same time.

Exhibited at: Marabouparken konsthall, Stockholm 2018. Open Scores – How to Program the Commons, Panke Gallery Berlin, 2019.

The Library of Inclusions and Omissions (2016-) is a practice-based experiment into critical knowledge infrastructures. By setting up a community-run reading room around intersectional feminist and decolonial printed matter, the project explores the library as an infrastructure for accessing, activating, and disseminating knowledge. In what ways could such a curatorial strategy thereby turn the library from a repository of knowledge (Springer 2015) into a space of social and intellectual encounter and action? Can such a library project help build a community or connect different communities?

Exhibited at: Utopia of Access, Pavilion for Artistic Research, 57th Venice Biennial 2017. The Research Show, A-Venue, Göteborg, 2016. Meaning Making Meaning, A-Venue, Göteborg, 2016. (2022)

Links

• Website
• Publications
• Video interview, Creating Commons, ZHDK, 2019