Feminist Citation Reading Group
22/01/2026 4–6 pm
With Helena Reckitt (Reader at the Curating Department of Art Goldsmiths, University of London). An out loud reading group exploring citation as a creative, critical, and political tool. No advance reading is required as all texts will be read out loud, together, during the meeting.
Homage, reference, tribute, fandom: citation enables us to trace the lineages that shape and sustain a work, while recognizing the collective nature of knowledge production. The practice of citation foregrounds the porous relationships between writers and readers, as well as the dynamics of influence and inspiration. By consciously refraining from referencing sources that are routinely cited, it becomes possible to question and reverse habits of systemic exclusion. Citation thus extends far beyond the act of referring to a source: it shapes where attention is directed and how we orient ourselves in the world.
This shared reading will prompt discussions about the role and relevance of citational practices within feminist, queer, and decolonial contexts. The workshop is guided by a question posed by Lima-based curator Susie Quilinan: “How can we re-enchant the citational as a practice of animating and regenerating relational networks rather than only reference and accumulation of authority?” At the same time, critiques of citational methods will play a central role, such as artist Xin Liu’s concern that “inclusive citation practice may result in forms of appropriation and reification that re-center whiteness, despite ‘good intentions.’”
Participation is free of charge, please register in advance.
Registration deadline: Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Excerpts from the following texts will be read and discussed:
Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life, Durham/North Carolina: Duke Univ. Press, 2017
Moyra Davey. Portrait Mode, ed. Marius Babias, Berlin: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2025
Lauren Fournier, „Citation as Relation: Intertextual Intimacies and Identifications,“ in: Fournier, Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism, Cambridge/Mass.: The MIT Press, 2021
Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, Eve Tuck, K. Wayne Yang, „Citation Practices Challenge,“ online project, 2015, citationpractices.tumblr.com
Clare Hemmings, Why Stories Matter, Durham/North Carolina: Duke Univ. Press, 2011
Trịnh Thị Minh Hà, „Grandma’s Story,“ in: Trịnh, Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism, Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1989
Trish Scott, Echogenerative Practice. A Citational Performance, 2025
Helena Reckitt is a Reader in Curating in the Art Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. She has worked in the UK, Canada, and the US as a curator of exhibitions and public programs, as well as an editor and writer. She serves on the committee of the Women’s Art Library, London, and is part of the Minor Democracies research network. In 2015, she founded the Feminist Duration Reading Group, dedicated to exploring overlooked feminist practices outside the dominant Anglo-American canon. Reckitt has edited the books Acting on AIDS (London, New York: Serpent’s Tail, 1997, with Josh Oppenheimer), Art and Feminism (London: Phaidon Press, 2001), Sanja Iveković: Unknown Heroine - A Reader (London: Calvert 22, 2013), and was Consultant Editor for Art and Feminism: Images that Shaped the Fight for Equality, 1857–2017 (London: Tate Publishing and Chronicle Books, 2019; revised edition 2022). She has co-edited two special issues of the Journal of Curatorial Studies, on Affect and Curating, and Affect and Museums, with Jennifer Fisher (2015 and 2016), and OnCurating, on Instituting Feminism, with Dorothee Richter (2021).
