On spirals

Abstract

PartSuspended is an international artist collective currently engaged in a project called Spirals (2013-ongoing) - a poetic journey that crosses geographical borders and unites European female voices in an exchange of languages, cultures, personal narratives and modes of expression.1 In this collection of essays, four members of the collective examine the spiral form as applied to women's experience. To support the proposal that women artists have successfully rehabilitated the use of metaphor, Barbara Bridger cites one of the earliest uses of the spiral form at Newgrange in Ireland, Louise Bourgeois' more recent engagement with spiral forms and PartSuspended's recent response to the notion of circularity. Georgia Kalogeropoulou explores rage as a point of ignition of spiralling action in time and considers the myth of the Medusa as a symbol of female rage. Using psychoanalysis and philosophy she analyses how desire connects with rage and explores possibilities of non-violent revolutionary action. Hari Marini follows a spiralling route folding inward, from the wide space of cities to streets leading home. Marini discusses how city-space is produced and gendered, and how considering space as unfinished and under constant change opens up possibilities. She also looks at the ways that streets are contested places and the importance of acknowledging female walkers. In conclusion, she discusses the meaning of home for PartSuspended's collective work in the Spirals project during Covid-19 lockdowns. Noèlia Díaz-Vicedo explores the role of the female poet in the construction of spirals through the intersection between body and language into motion through reading or performing. By using the theoretical understanding of the 'nomadic subject' developed by Rosi Braidotti, she also considers the extent to which this ongoing movement expands to destabilize the gap between our experiences, and the spaces we have available to find alternative forms of signification.