Feminist Design Strategies in Gerse VrouwenFeminist Design Strategies in Gerse Vrouwen

Heritage lab DIG IT UP, emancipation knowledge centre Dona Daria and the Rotterdam City Archives have together organised Gerse Vrouwen, an exhibition about the women's movement in Rotterdam. Also included in the exhibition, which can be seen in the gallery space of DIG IT UP, is a pop-up dispay that corresponds to the Feminist Design Strategies room in the Designing the Social exhibition currently on show at Het Nieuwe Institute.

The editors of the Feminist Design Strategies room in _Designing the Social _see DIG IT UP's invitation to contribute to Gerse Vrouwen as a great opportunity to connect the two institutions and bridge the ways in which they each work, in their own way, to make the legacy of feminist initiatives in Rotterdam more visible. In their contribution, researchers and designers Tabea Nixdorff and Setareh Noorani highlight examples that are characteristic of the connections between the personal, collective, institutional and non-institutional pursuit of change in the networks around Rotterdam second-wave feminists. In the heritage lab, for example, they present an article about architect Riek Bakker - to whom the city owes the design and construction of the Erasmus Bridge - and an open letter that a group of feminists sent in 1989 to the then NAI, the predecessor of Het Nieuwe Institute.

Nixdorff and Noorani place the feminist initiatives of the second wave of feminism (which took place roughly from the late 1960s to the late 1980s) in the context of broader social developments. During this period, the feminist emancipation struggle developed into an intersectional social justice movement, influenced by the revival of anti-fascism, the rise of the squatters' movement, the American civil rights movement, left-wing student movements throughout Europe, and global solidarity movements that oppose political oppression, apartheid and racism. It became increasingly clear that a woman is never 'just a woman'and that changing the social position of women also requires consideration of aspects such as class, ethnicity, skin colour, religion, education, sexuality and age.

The curators explain what new or underexposed insights they want to gather at the two exhibition venues. "What kind of knowledge can we gather at these two locations - Het Nieuwe Instituut and DIG IT UP? Het Nieuwe Instituut manages the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning. However, one of the Institute's responsibilities is to expose and connect the gaps in the collection, and to recognise the players and practices that have been and are left out because of historical collection policies and standard architectural and archival practice.

For a long time, the history of architecture, urban planning and design was the domain of white men. The Feminist Design Strategies exhibition room started as a sister project of Collecting Otherwise, a project and working group of Het Nieuwe Instituut that investigates and challenges these gaps and prejudices in the collection.

The research interweaves archival materials into constellations, highlighting the rich and expansive creative strategies and contributions of women, non-binary people and their allies."

DIG IT UP describes the exhibition as follows:

"Gerse Vrouwen portrays the Rotterdam women's movement and gives it a tangible place in history. Various women, action groups, interest groups and welfare institutions have campaigned for women's rights and emancipation.

The value for women, but also for Rotterdam society as a whole, is huge and should not be lost. The archival documents of Rotterdam women's emancipation in the Rotterdam City Archives are few. We would like to tell _your _story and add important chapters of history from the perspective of the women's movement. We pay special attention to the women's struggle that intersects with the developments from the Black, migrant and refugee women's (ZMV) movement and the LGBTI+ struggle."

As a community-driven organisation and heritage lab, DIG IT UP is committed to making the local heritage that connects us, and that has yet to be brought to light, accessible to the public in the most crucial way, namely by seeing heritage work as a collective practice. Het Nieuwe Instituut emphasises the importance of exchanges beyond the walls of the exhibition, in the neighbourhoods of Rotterdam.

Tabea Nixdorff (concept, design, research, texts), Setareh Noorani (research, texts), Ina Hollmann (production coordination), Bouwko Landstra & team (construction and production of exhibition), Sanne Oorthuizen (translations). Additional support: Delany Boutkan, Flora van Gaalen, Federica Notari, Carolina Pinto, Marina Otero Verzier and Francien van Westrenen.

• Date: November 14, 2021
• Time: 12:00 - 2:30pm
• Start location: Galerie DIG IT UP, Nieuwe Binnenweg 13B, 3014 GA Rotterdam, Netherlands
• Participation: only with registration, max. 15 people, museum free entrance, event will be mainly held in Dutch

On November 14, as part of the Gerse Vrouwen exhibition, Het Nieuwe Instituut organises a 'herstories' tour with Setareh Noorani and Tabea Nixdorff, co-researchers for the room Feminist Design Strategies (on display at Het Nieuwe Instituut as part of the exhibition _Designing the Social). _We will start with a collective reading of archival documents at the DIG IT UP gallery, after which we will walk as a group to Het Nieuwe Instituut (about 500 meters) and visit the Feminist Design Strategies room, where another collective reading of archival documents will take place.

You can register (until the end of Saturday 13 November) via an email to Tabea Nixdorff or Setareh Noorani.

Please note that a 'Coronatoegangsbewijs' QR code and ID are required

For questions or special wishes, please feel free to contact us.

• Date: November 21, 2021
• Time: 12:00 - 2:30pm
• Start location: Galerie DIG IT UP, Nieuwe Binnenweg 13B, 3014 GA Rotterdam, Netherlands
• Participation: only with registration, max. 15 people, museum free entrance, event will be mainly held in Dutch

On November 21, as part of the Gerse Vrouwen exhibition, Het Nieuwe Instituut organises a 'herstories' tour with Setareh Noorani and Tabea Nixdorff, co-researchers for the room Feminist Design Strategies (on display at Het Nieuwe Instituut as part of the exhibition _Designing the Social). _We will start with a collective reading of archival documents at the DIG IT UP gallery, after which we will walk as a group to Het Nieuwe Instituut (about 500 meters) and visit the Feminist Design Strategies room, where another collective reading of archival documents will take place.

You can register (until the end of Saturday 20 November) here.

Please note that a 'Coronatoegangsbewijs' QR code and ID are required

For questions or special wishes, please feel free to contact us.