A collage inspired by Virginia Woolf’s 1929 groundbreaking essay on women’s rights and independence. The work juxtaposes text and typography from A Room of One’s Own with visual elements from videos, photographs and collages of other artists, pioneering in their field. The female body becomes deconstructed and analysed, whether it is a paper doll from a Sherman video, a nude descending a staircase captured by Muybridge, or a dada interpretation of the early 20th-century woman by Höch. Room and spatial restrictions, beyond their physicality, function as an allegory of body and identity, echoing Beauvoir’s question “What is a woman?” that would follow Woolf’s essay a few decades later. The collage has been presented in exhibitions and cultural events in Athens and London.
Kika Kyriakakou is a PhD candidate in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. Her research focuses on contemporary art, literature and gender. She is an ICOM Member and the PCAI artistic director, supervising all the arts and education related projects of the organization. Kyriakakou is also writing for the Art newspaper (Greek edition) with an interest in new media, film and contemporary art. She has organized and curated various film festivals, exhibitions and cultural events and related to moving image and contemporary art, partnering with ART21 NYC, Unesco-Athens World Book Capital, Loop Barcelona and Kunstlerhaus Vienna amongst others. A self-taught photographer and videographer, she is particularly interested in urban imagery and gender history. Be sure to follow her on Instagram!
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