Help the Feminist Library build its new home

This week is OUR LAST ON CROWDFUNDER! Our crowdfunding campaign will close at the end of Women's History Month! And we still need your help! With only 6 days to go and another 13% to go to full target, every like, share and donation really matter! Let all your friends and family know - and let's build a beautiful new home for the Feminist Library together!  

Last weekend, we spoke with Martha Summers of Hi-Vis! - the fabulous feminist designers collective working on creating the new home for the Feminist Library, alongside Lucy Sanderson and Power Project. Here's what Martha had to say about working on this and other feminist architectural design projects: 

A: After my postgraduate studies I felt deeply frustrated with the continued patriarchal elitism of the architectural profession and the lack of radical alternatives to traditional practice. HI-VIS! was founded in November 2016, inspired by the feminist design groups set up in 1980s (such as the Women’s Design Service (WDS), and Matrix Feminist Design Cooperative). The group acts as a useful network to bring like-minded women and non-binary designers (regardless of qualification) together, encouraging support and possible collaboration. I approached the Library around this time to offer to provide pro-bono design services, formed a working group within the collective, and got our friends at Power Project involved to encourage a multi-disciplinary approach from the start.

A: I am interested in practice more than theory - finding ways to make use of my skills as a designer and a feminist in actual built work and community spaces. I am less concerned about trying to tap away at the deeply entrenched elitism of the architecture profession itself, serving only to improve conditions for women able to gain access to it in the first place, (although this sort of work is worthwhile to an extent), and more concerned with how I can leverage and share my education and experience for more direct feminist action. A lot of “feminist” discourse around the hot topic of “women in architecture” centres around our experience in practice (maternity pay, growing pay gap etc.). These issues are important, but I try and advocate for seeking radical alternatives to how architecture is currently practiced, both in process and product, rather than trying to fix a system designed to stay broken. As a butch lesbian, my lived experience of sexuality and gender play a primary role in my practice too, and as such I’d describe my practice as queer, perhaps more so than feminist.

A: When I first came to the Library I was bowled over both by how incredible the collection is, and how overlooked and underused it is by many. I immediately saw the move as an opportunity to give the collection the care, space, and presence it deserves, and to create a new type of more accessible and flexible space for engaging with the collection. A place for people to meet and organise together, surrounded by an archive of feminist thought and writing. A testing bed for feminist space, and an opportunity to test design and procurement processes outside of the status quo.

A: My friends and the incredible varied work and activism they do. Feminist and lesbian poetry. People like Nicole Killian who are actually talking about queering design in colleges. Sheds. Older butch women.

We have been incredibly inspired and honoured by having the opportunity to work with Martha and the others in our feminist design team. We feel incredibly blessed to see all the support the Library new home project has received - both from them as well as all our other volunteers who've worked incredibly hard to get the Library ready for its move, and all of our other supporters who've made it possible by donating. 

Now we only have 6 days left to reach the full move budget target! Help us make it happen by spreading the word today, so we can reach the whole feminist world with the news of our exciting move! Our Crowdfunder closes at 8pm on the 31st March.