To Become Two Alex Martinis Roe

The Milan Women’s Bookstore co-operative; the current Psychanalyse et Politiquein Paris; Women’s Studies at the University of Utrecht; a network in Sydney including people involved in the Sydney Filmmakers Co-operative, Feminist Film Workers, and the Department of General Philosophy at Sydney University; and Duoda – Centro de investigación de Mujeres and Ca La Dona in Barcelona are the collectives and locations which Alex Martinis Roe has undertaken research with over the past four years.

To Become Two is made up of narratives that the artist has woven in dialogue with the protagonists of these stories, starting from their oral testimonies, attending their meetings, and thus building meaningful relationships over time, which she has then translated into five of the six films that make up the exhibition.

“How can one learn from the story of the practices of another?” is one of the central questions running through the entire exhibition. How can you translate these lived experiences into propositions and affirmations in order to collaborate in creating new political practice?

The experiences and anecdotes of the meetings that took place over time, the care for the spaces that hosted these meetings, the sharing of theory and methodology, the empathy, the mutual influence and the differences between the various groups, form the narrative of the films and make it clear that “it was an unusual way of doing politics, … there were friendships, loves, gossip, tears, flowers…” as affirmed by the title of one of the films.

They are stories that Alex Martinis Roe has shared with new interlocutors, comrades and institutions, making them a topic for study and an exercise in collective working, still in progress, and which are the subject of the sixth film in the exhibition (Our Future Network).

To Become Two is therefore an attempt to trace a genealogy of feminist ‘new materialist’ thought and theories of “sexual difference”, which traverses and unites different generations, with the will to imagine a future for them.

Exhibition design in collaboration with Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga
Poster series in collaboration with Chiara Figone.
To Become Two has been produced with the support of curator Susan Gibb.

The publication To Become Two, published by Archive Books (Berlin), will be presented at the end of April to coincide with the public program.

To Become Two is co-commissioned by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht, If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam and The Showroom, London.

The Public Program is co-commissioned with the support of The Keir Foundation.

With kind support from:
The Autonomous Province of South Tyrol, Department of Culture
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio, Bolzano
City of Bolzano, Department of Culture
The Keir Foundation, Australia