Feminist Ecologies and Emergent Magics in Contemporary Art
One way of conceiving of magic is that it is centrally concerned with cultivating relationships with spaces and entities, to help navigate agency in a vast and complex universe. For many practitioners, magic is affectively and aesthetically entwined with notions of tradition, transmission and a connection with premodern practice. Yet the frameworks for understanding magical practice have always had an emergent quality which is responsive to science, technology and changing models of reality. Magical paradigms also adapt to global events, seen in the emergence of Rosicrucianism at the dawn of the Enlightenment, Chaos Magic in the late 1970s, and modern ecofeminisms from the 1980s onward. Today, some models of magical practice explicitly reflect resistance to systemic oppression of human, and other than human entities, and climate change, seeing these as inherently connected phenomena. Emergent magical discourses informed by feminist theorists, writers, and New Materialist thinkers such as Donna Haraway, Ursula LeGuin, Octavia Butler and Karen Barad, promote a radically connected, complex universe defined by quantum entanglement, suggesting that our individuality is somewhat an illusion. As a result, the hierarchical models of magic which derived from Neoplatonism are shifting toward models conceived as horizontal networks where all beings, including other than human and those potentially non-incarnate, are connected and enmeshed, where time and space are fluid, and care and reciprocity are explicitly valued.
This presentation explores the work of several contemporary women and LGBTQ artists who are disrupting and “troubling” earlier magical paradigms, creating new processes and magical aesthetics incorporating feminist ecologies which acknowledge a universe that extends beyond the visible. The work of Tai Shani, Alice Bucknell, Bones Tan Jones, Saya Woolfalk and others reflect a worldview of complex connections and bold visions for relating with a variety of entities. They engage with responsive and feminist magically informed practices including ritual, visual storytelling and worldbuilding, promoting change and transformation, reconfiguring our relationships and responsibilities to the other than human, both seen and unseen.
Bio
Amy Hale is an Atlanta based writer and critic. Research interests include magic, art, culture, women and Cornwall. Recent books include Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully, Sex Magic: Diagrams of Love, and Essays on Women in Western Esotericism (ed). A Walking Flame: Selected Magical Essays of Ithell Colquhoun is due in early 2025 and her current projects include a global survey of magic in contemporary art. She has contributed essays for Tate, Burlington Contemporary, Art UK, Arusha Gallery and Correspondences Journal. She is an Honorary Research Fellow with Falmouth University, a trustee of Rediscovering Art by Women (RAW) and a member of the British Art Network.
One way of conceiving of magic is that it is centrally concerned with cultivating relationships with spaces and entities, to help navigate agency in a vast and complex universe. For many practitioners, magic is affectively and aesthetically entwined with notions of tradition, transmission and a connection with premodern practice. Yet the frameworks for understanding magical practice have always had an emergent quality which is responsive to science, technology and changing models of reality. Magical paradigms also adapt to global events, seen in the emergence of Rosicrucianism at the dawn of the Enlightenment, Chaos Magic in the late 1970s, and modern ecofeminisms from the 1980s onward. Today, some models of magical practice explicitly reflect resistance to systemic oppression of human, and other than human entities, and climate change, seeing these as inherently connected phenomena. Emergent magical discourses informed by feminist theorists, writers, and New Materialist thinkers such as Donna Haraway, Ursula LeGuin, Octavia Butler and Karen Barad, promote a radically connected, complex universe defined by quantum entanglement, suggesting that our individuality is somewhat an illusion. As a result, the hierarchical models of magic which derived from Neoplatonism are shifting toward models conceived as horizontal networks where all beings, including other than human and those potentially non-incarnate, are connected and enmeshed, where time and space are fluid, and care and reciprocity are explicitly valued.
This presentation explores the work of several contemporary women and LGBTQ artists who are disrupting and “troubling” earlier magical paradigms, creating new processes and magical aesthetics incorporating feminist ecologies which acknowledge a universe that extends beyond the visible. The work of Tai Shani, Alice Bucknell, Bones Tan Jones, Saya Woolfalk and others reflect a worldview of complex connections and bold visions for relating with a variety of entities. They engage with responsive and feminist magically informed practices including ritual, visual storytelling and worldbuilding, promoting change and transformation, reconfiguring our relationships and responsibilities to the other than human, both seen and unseen.
Bio
Amy Hale is an Atlanta based writer and critic. Research interests include magic, art, culture, women and Cornwall. Recent books include Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully, Sex Magic: Diagrams of Love, and Essays on Women in Western Esotericism (ed). A Walking Flame: Selected Magical Essays of Ithell Colquhoun is due in early 2025 and her current projects include a global survey of magic in contemporary art. She has contributed essays for Tate, Burlington Contemporary, Art UK, Arusha Gallery and Correspondences Journal. She is an Honorary Research Fellow with Falmouth University, a trustee of Rediscovering Art by Women (RAW) and a member of the British Art Network.