ARIADNE:

We Took Back The Night

 
 
 

Exhortation to March

At The Feminist Perspectives on Pornography Conference
Hosted By Women Against Violence in Pornography & Media (WAVPAM)

Tonight we are going to walk together, all of us, to take back the night, as women have in cities all over the world, because in every sense none of us can walk alone. Every woman walking along is a target. Every woman walking alone is hunted, harassed, time after time harmed by psychic or physical violence. Only by walking together can we walk at all with any sense of safety, dignity, or freedom. Tonight, walking together, we will proclaim to the rapists and pornographers and woman batterers that their days are numbered and our time has come...
— Andrea Dworkin

Andrea Dworkin, author Woman Hating, 1974

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Hardcore Pornographic Images

 
 
...And tomorrow, what will we do tomorrow? Because sisters, the truth is that we have to take back the night every night, or the night will never be ours. This is our choice, and this is our necessity. It is a revolutionary choice, and it is a revolutionary necessity. For us, the two are indivisible, as we must be indivisible in our fight for freedom. Many of us have walked many miles already—brave, hard miles but we have not gone far enough. Tonight, with every breath and every step, we must commit ourselves to going the distance: to transforming this earth on which we walk from prison and tomb into our rightful and joyous home. This we must do and this we will do, for our own sakes and for the sake of every woman who has ever lived.
— Andrea Dworkin
 

Porno District on Broadway

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Conference

"Feminist Perspectives on Pornography" Conference

 

For the first time ever, women from across the country came together to claim pornography as a feminist issue of national proportions. WAVAPM’s National “Feminist Perspectives on Pornography” Conference was a historic event of immense political significance. 

 
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The integration of artists and activists characterized feminist performance art in the 70’s.

The first national “Perspectives in Pornography” conference was an important opportunity to include women visual artists in political organizing. ARIADNE: A Social Art Network curated a series of interventions with artists from around the state. Events, performances and exhibitions for the conference were organized by MOTION, a San Francisco performance collective that organized a panel of female eroticism and art and created rituals to open and close the conference: Micki McGee and Mary Lynn Hughes designed a bus poster and postcard series and The Feminist Art Workers created a tour/art performance for women artists traveling from Los Angeles.

Participating Artists include Betsy Irons, Ann Klix, Monica Mayer and Rosemarie Prins. This project was commissioned by WAVPM for the Conference on Pornography.