Curation as the Cure for the Archive

Abstract

Groupe Intervention Vidéo (GIV) is an independent artist run center in Montreal “dedicated to the promotion of videos created by women (in its most inclusive definition) by distributing and presenting them” (GIV website) At the crossroads of longevity, consistency, commitment, and the precarity that accompanies most forms of feminist labor, GIV is one of the most important “accidental” archives of feminist organizing and expression in Quebec. Their curatorial practices resist any archiving separated from the practice of everyday life. This article focuses on the thirty-year history of Vidéo des Femmes dans le Parc (VFP), GIV’s annual public and outdoor screening of new works from an open call. We trace how this event serves to “call in” artists to build feminist community and continually change GIV’s definition of who their community is.