In her lecture, Helena Reckitt examines the citational practices of contemporary, intersectional feminist artists, writers, and readers. She considers how citation can function as a means of homage and tribute, reparation, and activism. Through creative acts of recitation and circulation, artists and collectives such as Barby Asante, Maja Bekan, Claire Fontaine, The Hildegard von Bingen Society for Gardening Companions, and Mai Ling map their artistic and political lineages. Within long-term artistic and curatorial projects including Read In (Utrecht), Mundos Habitables (Lima), and the Feminist Duration Reading Group (London), the collective reading of overlooked texts challenges established citational habits. Reckitt highlights citation as a tool for questioning entrenched canons while also addressing current critiques of citational methods.

The lecture connects to Moyra Davey’s sustained engagement with the work of other writers and artists, whose practices she cites and references in her own work. In doing so, Davey articulates her appreciation for both iconic figures and younger voices in contemporary art. Her video work Forks & Spoons (2024), presented at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, for example, foregrounds reflections on the representation of aging and female-coded bodies through her engagement with five photographers from different generations.

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).