Now You Can Go

Now You Can Go was an events programme inspired by Italian feminisms of the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that Helena Reckitt initiated and organised with six feminist colleagues. It took place across four London art venues, the ICA, The Showroom, SPACE, and Raven Row, 1-13 December 2015. Juxtaposing historical with contemporary positions, the series explores feminist concepts of generation and genealogy. It asked whether practices of consciousness-raising and collectivity might help us to combat the fragmentation, exhaustion and anxiety that we experience under networked capitalism. The programme drew inspiration from Italian feminisms, including the work of collectives formed in the 1970s: Rivolta Femminile (Female Revolt), Libreria delle Donne di Milano (Milan Women’s Bookstore collective), and Lotta Femminista (Feminist Struggle). A touchstone was the work of Carla Lonzi, the writer and cofounder of Rivolta Femminile, and her refusal of power and rejection of masculine creativity that exploits female supportive activity. This process of ‘deculturation’ entailed Lonzi’s withdrawal from her roles as an art critic, as a feminist leader, and from her relationship with her lover, the sculptor Pietro Consagra, which she documented in a dialogue between them called Vai pure (Now You Can Go). The programme explored four inter-related themes: Revisiting, Translating and Annotating earlier periods of feminism, especially those of second wave Italian feminisms; Social Reproduction; Affective Politics and Human Strike; and Anti-Assimilationist Feminisms. Now You Can Go grew out of the Feminist Duration Reading Group which meets monthly at Space Studios in London. The programme was initiated by Helena Reckitt and developed by participants from the Feminist Duration Reading Group including Angelica Bollettenari, Giulia Casalini, Diana Georgiou, Laura Guy, Irene Revell and Amy Tobin. It was coordinated by Helena Reckitt with Dimitra Gkitsa. Full programme details can be found on the nowyoucango tumblr site: http://nowyoucango.tumblr.com/abou