Written in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the conclusion engages the mobilising potential of virtual space for queer and feminist artists and the challenges for building sustainable art spaces in the face of present-day economic and structural disparities and inequalities.
Histories of feminist, queer, and queer feminist art can be traced onto the histories of the institutions, organisations, collectives, and structures that have helped to secure and legitimise feminist and queer art practices. Building histories examines select feminist and queer alternative art spaces across Canada and the United States and the ways by which contemporary queer and feminist practices support and challenge the dominant narratives through which these histories have commonly been understood. Beginning with an exploration of the foundational histories of feminist art, the book examines how queer and feminist institutions have taken divergent paths in subsequent decades, and how they might be read through the spaces, communities and cities that provide the conditions for their cultivation. The book contributes to the development of histories of sites of feminist and queer cultural production and considers the enduringly precarious position of feminist and queer art histories relative to more mainstream art histories. It also examines how present-day queer and feminist artists engage and respond to the histories, spaces, and institutions they have inherited.