Art & Activism: Early Reflections on the III Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policies

By Dr. Kristen Ali Eglinton

As I am still integrating the significant gathering that was the III Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policies— FFP—in Mexico City, I’ll start with a description of one moment—not necessarily of the event itself, but rather of a moment or space bursting at the seams with the undertow—perhaps riptide—of change, resistance, co-creation, evolution. Every one of us interested in making policies more feminist might consider holding the spirit of this moment or space as the force of change needed in imagining a future landscape of inclusive policy creation, compassionate actions, and diplomacy as dialogue—a landscape aligned, reflexive, and polyvocal—capable of deeply undermining and transmuting the growing dangerous energy of anti-rights movements.

On my final day in Mexico City, with a few hours left, I decided to feel the energy around Frida Kahlo’s home. While I asked a taxi to take me to Frida Kahlo's house, I was dropped off in Mexico City's Zona Rosa, or "Pink Zone." What at first felt like a mistake, being dropped in the wrong part of the city, soon felt like I was guided by Frida herself. I went underground to the place where new communities are born, where the edges of transformation—mind, body, geography—touch, mingle, and open new paths. In this space, I met two makeup artists, Itai (left) and Odette (right), whose work echoes the spirit of Frida Kahlo (who was born the very next day in 1907!). Itai and Odette paint their faces, photograph themselves, and turn the images into stickers. I bought a dozen stickers with Frida’s powerful words in my head: “I am my own muse, I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to better.”

I've always been a feminist (define it as you wish—I imagine it through feminist research principles) and a researcher, but also an artist. Many might not know my undergraduate degree was in fine art (and philosophy...). My work always intertwined art and activism (artivism, I don't remember using this word so long ago), working for reproductive rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, against GBV, and for justice, everywhere. I’m a maker: working with ceramics, steel, and trash (my treasure), installing life-sized fabricated steel figures on my undergraduate campus in an act of awareness and solidarity for those marginalized because of the hateful discourse around HIV/AIDS, weaving aprons, doll legs and body parts for exhibitions in London on the power of feminist art, or sharing a visual auto-ethnography (with my favorite title, wait for it: “watching myself, watching myself”) at Cambridge while writing up my dissertation—forever exploring—whether through sculpture, image, written words, the body / identities as sites of battle both internally and globally, challenging boundaries, taboos, and shame as mechanisms of control. My training as an applied social scientist and feminist researcher (we called it feminist research then, too; it just felt like lonelier work long ago—a little hidden perhaps—but now the company I keep inspires me!) led me to create bespoke arts-based methods and craft multimedia ethnographies where there is no research for research's sake—every move is toward justice and change (including for ourselves).

As a co-founder of Footage, an organization that conducts feminist research interventions to influence policy and create real change through expressive media and dialogue diplomacy, Frida's legacy and ability to cross boundaries, resist through expression, commune, and thus co-create, is woven through our approach. 

Following the III Ministerial Conference, where we convened with genuine hope, commitment, and purpose, Frida led me to the work of these two artists — in a space not only about resistance and crossing boundaries but also creating new, perhaps even liminal spaces. These are the geographies that policy frameworks — feminist or otherwise — need to keep pace with, adapt to, and embrace. FFP requires not just policies but also, we would argue at Footage, inclusive, participatory, contextual, accountable, compassionate, and reflexive policy-making (and that is just the beginning). As such, we will continue to advocate, and tirelessly strive for, inclusive policy-making processes that mirror the intersectional realities on the ground — feminist foreign policies that deeply embrace, uplift, and acknowledge queer spaces, artists, activists, and female and gender-expansive identities — those who, from my experience, are genuinely leading us all, often risking their lives, in the struggle for equity, liberation, and, ultimately, a more compassionate and humane world. More follow-up from the event itself will come soon (including reposting from colleagues who are capturing it so beautifully).

Please take a moment to follow and uplift the work of Itai (@ita.idk) and Odette (@mc.odette) on Instagram. Posted with consent.

“It was an important moment for me to represent @Footageproject.org at the III Feminist Foreign Policy conference in Mexico City—10 years after our first Girl-talk-Girl Public Diplomacy program.” Dr. Kristen Ali Eglinton. (Above).

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