Tools for the Feminist Present

Tools for the Feminist Present proposes a list of imaginary objects—such as "Persistence Chisels" and "Headphones of Refusal"— necessary for building a collective feminist response to contemporary political conditions. Presented on a pegboard background and mimicking the layout of a hardware catalogue, the drawings pay homage to The New Woman’s Survival Catalog, a 1973 newsprint publication that advertised do-it-yourself strategies for self-care and activism for feminists. These tools are for sharing, passing on skills, lending a hand, getting by. Might the objects, resources, and community pedagogies modelled in the original survival catalog be re-imagined from a post-Internet moment and from a position of looking both backwards and forwards in time?