MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture
@maifeminism.bsky.social
MAI is a peer-reviewed, open-access publication for feminist scholars, writers, artists and activists who address visual culture at large.
Hello again, where were we? There are still so many great articles to share from our latest issue. Do you know what 'fridging' has to do with superheroes? Find out in Megan Stephens' eye-opening essay.. www.maifeminism.com/in-his-arms-... #feminism #film
In His Arms: Exploring the ‘Women in Refrigerators’ Trope on Screen
Comparing two deaths of female characters in superhero media, Stephens explores the relationship between embodied death and identity.
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"Cinema’s proclivity for depictions of female death..can be traced to the earliest moments of the medium’s technological and creative development." Read Kaitlin Lake's incisive essay in our new issue: www.maifeminism.com/imagining-he... #film #feminism
Imagining Her Death: Cinematic Othering of the Absent Muse
Arguing that women in cinema bear rather than make meaning, Lake asks what happens when a woman’s death is unseen.
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In our new issue Anne Bettina Pedersen explores how Whiteness interweaves with concepts of (in)visibility, beauty, femininity, and innocence in narratives about dead girls and women. www.maifeminism.com/the-beautifu... #crime #drama #feminism #narrative
The Beautiful Dead White Girl/Woman
Pedersen demonstrates how Whiteness shapes the trope of the beautiful dead girl/woman and how it has been used to privilege white victims.
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In a creative practice peice for our new issue, Ana Patiño & Maria Karpushina use the idyllic image of a garden as a microcosm, shattered, to reflect the harsh reality of patriarchal practices www.maifeminism.com/a-little-bea... #creativepractice #feminism #exquisitecorpse #garden
A Little Beautiful Garden: Between Woods, Between Worts, Between Daily Lights
This creative article uses a fragmented structure to echo narratives of those whose lives were affected by femicide and gendered violence.
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Are you a good mother? In our latest issue, Eleanore Gardner & Alyson Miller unpick the problematic ideas surrounding male violence in the Netflix series 'You' www.maifeminism.com/motherhood-g... #tv #feminism #mother
Motherhood, Gendered Death & Violence in Netflix series You
Gardner and Miller argue that women's fate in the Netflix series You depends on their status as 'good' mothers, lovers, and wives.
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"Tales of the deep dark woods linger in the recesses of our collective imagination, invading our wildest dreams and haunting our darkest nightmares" Trish Black explores the cultural phenomenon of rural noir in our latest issue www.maifeminism.com/forests-fear... #crime #feminism #noir
Forests, Fear, and Femicide: Images of Unbelonging in Rural Noir Visuals
Black argues that visuals in rural noir texts tend to exploit forests and green spaces as malevolent mise-en-scène to femicide.
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"Dying on film ‘overwhelmingly happens to white, middle-class people.’" Jillian Tullis & Emily Ryalls unpick the stereotypes in their timely contribution to our latest issue www.maifeminism.com/death-withou... #film #feminism #intersectional
Death Without Dying: Invisible Depictions of Black Women’s Death on Film
Focusing on the 'dying mothers sub-genre', the two authors ponder the meaning of Black women's bodies' absence in film.
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Stacey Pitsilides & Ellen Sampson's essay film in our new issue explores ideas of cellular and digital immortality, making visible the ways that women’s bodies are divided, distributed and re-constructed, networked and summoned into being. www.maifeminism.com/caught-betwe... #film #feminism
Caught Between Slides of Screen
This short film demonstrates how posthuman feminisms and new materialism can disrupt practices which commercialise immortality.
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"the story of a woman’s relationship to death is the story of the world, of then, of now, of always, of still." Michele Aaron sets the scene for our new issue in her foreword to MAI 16: Dead Women and Gendered Death in Visual Culture. www.maifeminism.com/dead-women-a...
Dead Women and Gendered Death in Visual Culture: Foreword
Looking at a broader context, Aaron praises our authors for interrogating how women's deaths are currently conceptualised in visual culture.
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Excited to share our new issue, guest edited by Devaleena Kundu, Bethan Michael-Fox, and Khyati Tripathi which shows through a diverse range of essays how feminism extends beyond one’s lifespan. www.maifeminism.com/issues/focus... #feminism
Focus Issue Sixteen: Dead Women and Gendered Death in Visual Culture
Our authors reveal how representations of dead women are subjected to patriarchal and neoliberal capitalist discourses.
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We welcome creative submissions that centre feminist thought: video or photo essays, short films or poetry, such as this meditation by Pulkita Anand in our latest issue MAI 15 Intersectional Selves: Feminist Self-Portraiture www.maifeminism.com/stupid-as-yo... #feminism #poetry #academicsky
Stupid as You Say: A Poem - MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture
Anand offers a meditative, dialogic reflection on two opposing sensibilities that have often been aligned with binary gender categorisations.
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2025 was the 120th anniversary of Slovenian cinema. Ana Šturm interviews Urška Djukić about her film Little Trouble Girls and women's voices in Slovenian cinema for our latest edition MAI 15 Intersectional Selves Feminist Self-Portraiture www.maifeminism.com/urska-djukic... #film #voice #academicsky
Urška Djukić & Women Voices in Slovenian Cinema
Ana Šturm, from the Slovenian journal, Ekran, meets the award-winning director, Urška Djukić, to discuss her latest film, Little Trouble Girls (2025).
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Did you miss us? There's still lots to read in our latest issue MAI 15. Start the year off with Angela Varricchio exploring feminist perspectives on conflict photography. www.maifeminism.com/women-photog... #photography #feminism #academicsky
Women Photographers: Expanding Agenda & Subverting Powers
The author ponders how the intertwining of gender and race reconfigures the dynamics of power in the photographic coverage of conflict.
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As we head toward the end of the year, take time to reflect. What better way to do so than with the poems of Madeleine Bazil www.maifeminism.com/i-am-once-ag... #poetry #feminism #psychogeography #academicsky
‘I Am Once Again Refracting’: Toward a Feminist Psychogeography
Sharing a few poems, Bazil presents herself as an archivist of psychogeography, a witness to moments achingly tender and prismatic.
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There's still time to catch up with our new issue MAI 15 Intersectional Selves: Feminist Self-Portraiture. Read Roxanne Bottomley's energising exploration of football and participatory design www.maifeminism.com/our-queer-se... #feminism #football #academicsky
Our Queer-Selves: Design Practice as Self-Portrayal & Collective Expression
Bottomley examines participatory design in queer football communities as a form of collective self-portraiture and resistance.
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Continuing our travels through our new issue MAI 15, follow Leela O'Connor as she explores what it is to be a feminist reader www.maifeminism.com/reconstructi... #reading #feminism #academicsky
Reconstructive Metadata: A Self-Portrait of the Feminist Reader
In the word obsessed with data profiling, O'Connor creates a metadata of her feminist readings to develop a radical self-portrait.
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Marissa Willcox explores intersectionality in the feminist Instagram art of Hana Shafi and Theo Grimes in our latest issue MAI 15: Intersectional Selves: Feminist Self-Portraiture www.maifeminism.com/making-the-f... #art #feminism #academicsky
Making the Feminist Intersectional Self Through Erotic Instagram Art
Analysing two artists, Hana Shafi and Theo Grimes, Willcox explores the role of intersectionality in feminist art on Instagram.
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Maïwenn is perhaps one of the most intriguing and controversial women directors in contemporary French cinema. Zelal Berfin Tataroglu explores Maïwenn's authorship in our new issue MAI 15 www.maifeminism.com/maiwenn-frag... #feminism #film #academicsky
Maïwenn's Fragmented Self: Unveiling the Author
Addressing the criticism of Maïwenn and her work, Tataroglu conducts a feminist and post-colonial examination of her directorial output.
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It's almost the weekend...Enjoy this conversation between Elizabeth Orcutt [guest editor of our current issue MAI15] and performance artist Bobby Baker www.maifeminism.com/domestic-sci... #feminism #performance #art #academicsky
Domestic Scientist & Artist: Bobby Baker’s Portrayals of Feminist Selfhood
The iconic Bobby Baker discusses her radical journey, beginning from a challenging position in the male-dominated art landscape in the UK.
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In the current issue of MAI 15 Intersectional Selves: Feminist Self-Portraiture, Oriana Fox explores two works of performance art by Nando Messias and Cassils which share activist/aesthetic responses to hate crimes www.maifeminism.com/no-innocent-... #feminism #performance #academicsky
No Innocent Bystanders: Nando Messias & Cassils Confront Hate Crimes
Comparing two performance artists, Fox reflects on the complex dynamic of resistance vs. vulnerability in the face of hate crimes.
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Keni Li explores the 3D sculptures, AR/VR portraits, and videos of British Australian sculptor and digital artist Sophie Kahn in our new issue MAI 15: Intersectional Selves: Feminist Self-Portraiture www.maifeminism.com/death-and-re... #feminism #academicsky #fineart #digital #art
Death and Rebirth: 3D Printed Women Portraits by Sophie Kahn
Li examines how Sophie Kahn's use of transformative materials and glitch aesthetics reshapes contemporary women's self-portraiture.
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Kheyzaran Esmaeilzade explores the performative images that women created and in which they presented themselves during the Jina (‘Woman, Life, Freedom’) uprising in Iran. www.maifeminism.com/self-portrai... #feminism #academicsky #selfportrait #performativity
Self-portrait as Collective Art Praxis: The Jina Uprising in Iran
Esmaeilzade analyses the self-expressive art of the Jina uprising as a tool for protesting the systemic oppression of Iranian women.
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Start your week as you mean to go on, with an article a day from our new issue MAI 15 Intersectional Selves: Feminist Self-Portraiture. Oriana Fox interviews performance artist Krishna Istha on the M:otherhood Project (2023-present) www.maifeminism.com/a-labour-of-... #feminism #performance
A Labour of Love: Krishna Istha on M:otherhood Project
Having completed First Trimester, his first film in a planned trilogy, Istha meets Oriana Fox to discuss trans pregnancy and parenthood.
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In our new issue MAI 15, Assunta Ruocco takes us on an absorbing exploration of artist Alison Lloyd (1957-2024) focusing on her use of Instagram to revive her archive of early photographs from the 1970s & 1980s. www.maifeminism.com/insertingher... #feminism #selfportrait #photograhpy #academicsky
#insertingherselfinarthistory: Alison Lloyd’s Feminist Auto-Citation & Social Media
Examining Lloyd's reframing of her photographs in the new context of social media, Ruocco discusses her practice as feminist auto-citation.
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Amber Moore uses feminist theory, crip theory and witnessing to explore feminist self portraiture in the TV show Sex Education. www.maifeminism.com/sexual-traum... Just one of the insightful articles in our new issue MAI 15. #feminism #tv #academicsky
Sexual Trauma & Feminist Self-Portraiture in Sex Education
Moore argues that Sex Education is a young adult text revealing the power of feminist self-portraiture to disrupt ableism and rape culture.
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Next up: www.maifeminism.com/disorderly-b... Federica Cavazzuti explores Japanese women’s photography arguing that the use of self-portraiture reveals a shared need to make a political statement. #feminism #photography #academicsky
Disorderly Bodies: Self-portraiture as Emancipation for Japanese Women
Exploring Japanese women's photography, Cavazzuti argues that the use of self-portraiture reveals a shared need to make a political statement.
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Let's dive in...over this week we'll be sharing articles from our new Issue 15 Intersectional Selves: Feminist Self-Portraiture. What better place to begin than the introduction by guest editors Elizabeth Orcutt and Dawn Woolley. www.maifeminism.com/intersection... #feminism #portrait #academicsky
Intersectional Selves: Feminist Self–portraiture
Introducing the issue, Orcutt and Woolley highlight that feminist self-representation is an inquiry into evolving intersectional experiences.
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*Happy dance* It's new issue day!! Welcome to MAI Issue 15: Intersectional Selves: Feminist Self-Portraiture, a packed issue highlighting the personal, performative, and intensely political forms of women’s self-portraiture in visual media. #feminism #visualarts www.maifeminism.com/issues/focus...
Focus Issue Fifteen: Intersectional Selves: Feminist Self-Portraiture
Our authors demonstrate that women's self-portraiture in media is always personal, performative, and intensely political.
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🚨🌱 The Chancellor is reviewing all public spending from scratch. Please join me in signing the @campaignforthearts.org petition to remind the UK Govt: the arts make our lives happier & our communities stronger. Now is the moment to invest in them. www.campaignforthearts.org/petitions/sp...
Petition: Make the arts part of UK National Renewal | Campaign for the Arts
The Chancellor is reviewing all public spending from scratch. The arts make our lives happier and our communities stronger. Now is the moment to invest in them.
campaignforthearts.org
