File Under Female

File Under Female is a collaborative project created by award-winning Chesterfield artist Bella Milroy, Artist in Residence at the Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths, University of London. The project, supported by the Women’s Art Library, Derbyshire Library Service and Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals and sponsored by Arts Council England, evolved during 2017 into an exhibition, publication and creative exchange event produced from her residency at the Women’s Art Library. It explores and celebrates the inspiring qualities of women artists’ archives made compelling by additional hand written texts and drawings found on top of, next to and along-side archived materials.

The project resulted in a solo exhibition of work by Milroy at the Kingsway Corridor in Goldsmiths University, an A1 print of a hand-written essay by us (the white pube, hello) on one side and a photograph taken by the artist on the other, ending with a panel talk at Chesterfield Library ~ ~. The photo on the front presents a page of an exhibition catalogue that Bella had found in the Women's Art Library archive, in which artist Symrath Patti was listed and pictured with the caption 'self-portrait.' Patti had annotated 'or press photography. - it's not a self portrait. I didn't take the photo. Selling ethnicity, File under Post colonial 'Female' + all the other isms.'

Our essay was in response to Symrath's annotation as well as the wider politics of archives and the **female**

The A1 print was distributed as an exhibition handout but it also went on display across all 45 Derbyshire libraries in print (including 2 prison libraries) and as a downloadable PDF across all libraries in England! 8-) Download the PDF here - - - >