About

My research addresses the representation and reception of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) women artists in England after 1989. It proposes a transnational, feminist and anti-xenoracist curatorial framework for CEE art and explores the intersections between postsocialism and postcolonialism. In 2022 in post-Brexit Britain, three CEE women artists had their solo shows staged at renowned art institutions. The exhibitions of Marina Abramovic at Modern Art Oxford and Magdalena Abakanowicz and Maria Bartuszova, both at TATE, indicate the growing curatorial interest in art from CEE region, and specifically – art by women. These exhibitions take place in a moment marked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, continuous far right politics in CEE countries continuously limiting women’s basic rights, and anti-Eastern European sentiment in the UK, resulting in the marginalisation and underrepresentation of the CEE community in Britain. The exhibitions also demonstrate recent examples of how the work of CEE women is publicly negotiated, framed and contextualised in the UK as part of ‘Western Europe’ – and thereby how both ‘East’ and ‘West’ are symbolic constructs defined by access to global capital and resources. The study revises the history of curatorial frames of CEE art in England and evaluates the role of women artists in constructing the narrative of art from this region as well as their relation to transnational, feminist curating.