Blue Broad: The Feminist Reframing of Monica Lewinsky in the #metoo Era
Below, Canadian artists Erin Finley and Heather Saunders present a collaborative video artwork that explores Monica Lewinsky as an icon for the #MeToo movement. In the video, viewers will see Lewinsky’s portrait painted by Finley, with Saunders’ “correcting” text elements. This artwork touches on feminist pedagogy, pop-culture language, and Lewinsky’s emergence as a 21st-century feminist symbol. The artists have collaborated previously, addressing feminist subject matters focused on other significant icons, including Yoko Ono and Maria Alyokhina, with the former being a live drawing performance at a conference at Sarah Lawrence College.
Erin Finley
Erin Finley is a Toronto-based artist who has exhibited internationally. Her work has been exhibited at École Polytechnique (Paris, FR); Paul Petro Gallery (Toronto, ON); Arc Gallery (Chicago, IL); Hallwalls (Buffalo, NY); Allegheny College (Pennsylvania); Eastern New Mexico University (NM); CBGB’s (NY); Miami University Gallery (Oxford, OH); Line Gallery (North Bay, ON); La Porte Peinte Centre Pour Les Arts (Burgundy, FR); Femina Potens Gallery (San Francisco, CA); Idaho State University (Pocatello, ID); Siena Art Institute (Siena, Italy); Queen’s University (Kingston, ON); Moonfruit (Amsterdam, The Netherlands); and Karat Artspace (Cologne, Germany). Erin Finley has received national support for the development of her work, including project grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. Other institutions that have supported her research include the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Université du Québec a Montréal, and the University of Calgary, where Finley obtained an MFA in drawing and painting.
Learn more at erinfinley.com.
Heather Saunders
Heather Saunders’ texiles-based work focusing on gender independence and radical female role models has been exhibited in Canada, the US, and the Netherlands. She is the former Director of Ingalls Library at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Faculty Art Librarian at Purchase College. Her chapter, “Artist in Protest: An Apologia of Ten Years of Blogging” is forthcoming in the Litwin Books anthology, Art at the Intersection of Librarianship and Social Justice.
Learn more at artbyheathersaunders.blogspot.com.
This creative approach to news by Finley and Saunders reveals so much. Having lived through this scandal and remembering myself as a Democrat who was deeply uncomfortable with what Clinton had done and how the party treated that – I did not really pay attention to Monica Lewinsky’s experience – or think about how deeply she had suffered the way I see it now. I really wish we could go back in time and treat that young woman, and the whole incident differently. What we failed to see and speak, what what we gave permission to because of that is made clear and clearer as the #Metoo movement evolves and activists like Monica Lewinsky have their voices amplified by artists like Finley and Saunders.