Perspectives on Consciousness-Raising: A Modernist Intersectional Feminist Agenda

My thesis objective is to extend women\u27s understanding of the impalpable second-wave feminist term, consciousness-raising, and its applications through curating a fictitious exhibition. My fabricated exhibition Great Women Artists: Consciousness-Raising among Intersectional Feminists will juxtapose the works of iconic feminist artists who practiced consciousness-raising with emerging and iconic female artists to advocate consciousnessraising\u27s applicability for practicing women artists. Curating Great Women Artists will support the idea of raising a female class consciousness via mass consciousness-raising. I will utilize the voices of iconic second-wave feminists, such as Kathie Sarachild, who have discussed consciousness-raising’s impacts and supported the founding female class consciousness of feminist artists. Meanwhile, female class consciousness is rooted in the Marxist idea of ego and economic duality; male-representation\u27s dominance only exists with the subjugation of female artists. Raising a female class consciousness would acknowledge women artists\u27 lack of diversified representation in the male-dominated art world. Feminist artists may adapt consciousness-raising as a tool to elevate suppressed thoughts and feelings to change the dominant male visual practices, mutually draw conclusions, and command political activism, demanding institutional representation of women artists. If contemporary women artists practiced consciousness-raising in small intimate groups of women, they would uniquely contribute to modernism and create an essential dialogue between diverse women artists demanding intersectional womens’ art representation