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Art discrimination and resistance

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ELF, calvert 22, auditMay 24 sees the launch of the results of the Art Audit.

A year-long survey of the position of women in today’s art world, the ‘Great East London Art Audit’ was started by East London Fawcett (ELF), the East London branch of the Fawcett Society – the UK’s leading campaign for equality between women and men  – in the spring of 2012.

The event on May 24 is to mark the culmination of a year’s worth of work from a dedicated team of volunteer campaigners, researchers and statisticians.

The intention of this campaign is to raise awareness of the gender imbalance that persists within London’s galleries, and to celebrate those women who are defying the statistics and the galleries that support them.

The body of up-to-date statistics generated by the team will reflect the representation of women in today’s art world, and will hopefully provide an objective basis for future discourse on women in the arts.

The launch will form part of Calvert 22’s month-long exhibition and events programme comprising talks, workshops, screenings and new commissions.

Founded in 2009, Calvert 22 is dedicated to building cultural bridges between Russia, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet republics and the rest of the world.

Fostering conversations on subjects such as how histories are written and recorded in print and on screen ‘…how is it towards the east?’ is partially an opportunity to critically examine modes of self-organisation within the arts.

Over the past year, the audit campaign has demonstrated the power of self-motivation and campaigning that is both passionate and sensitive.

The campaign is illustrative of the impact of positive feminist campaigning today.

Following an introduction from ELF arts director Gemma Rolls-Bentley, the audit team will unveil and explain their results and offer a series of short presentations on what motivates ELF, how the campaign has been organised and what they hope to achieve by releasing these results.

The informal structure of the evening will allow for an open dialogue around the findings of the Art Audit.

The event is from 7 pm – 9pm, at 22 Calvert Avenue, London, E2 7JP and is free and open to all.

The full audit results will be published on ELF’s Audit website.

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