This research through practice project identifies and enacts a new feminist method which I call ‘ speaking with’, being a feminist method for art practice, writing and research which enables silenced voices, gaps in legacies, embodied knowledge, new subjectivities and excess to be heard through its practice.

In contextualising the method ‘speaking with’ I identify methods of conversation as practice where ‘speaking with’ is enacted examining methods of ‘critical proximity’ (Igwe, 2020), ‘expanded legacy’ (Hebson, 2014), ‘close reading’ (Butler, A., 2019), ‘fandom’ (Grant and Random Love, 2019) and differentiate ‘speaking with’ from ‘speaking nearby’ (Minh-ha, 2109). The project widens its lens to come into conversation with the practices of Carolee Schneemann, Beatrice Gibson, Nadia Hebson, Yvonne Rainer, Florence Peake, Charlotte Prodger and Anne Boyer. As well as the project conversing with artistic legacies and specific artworks of these artists, the research identifies where ‘speaking with’ happens within these interlocutors’ own practices including conversing with - artists’ legacies (Nadia Hebson looking at Winifred Knights), materials of practice ( Florence Peake’s work with moving bodies, clay and sharpie markers), fannish love (Alice Butler’s love letter to Cookie Mueller).

This project identifies feminist methods of refusal as important in opening out spaces of ‘speaking with’. Artistic and written methods of refusal examined include refusal of: patriarchal linear history (Olufemi, 2021); patriarchal subject-hood (Lonzi, 1970); neo-liberal conditions of labour (Boyer, 2015) and the ‘demand to entertain’ (Rainer, 2015). In this project I identify what is produced from spaces of refusal as excess. Following on from Irigaray’s ‘excess’ (Irigaray, 1985) and Kristeva’s ‘chora’ (Kristeva, 1974) excess is understood for this project as the articulation of my personal subjectivity as mother, carer, friend and artist. For this research project excess is produced through conversations and live moments of engagement with artwork, art texts and event scores which are often unmeasurable or exceed the moments or materials from which they were created. In this project excess is produced live through enacting ‘speaking with’ as a method of thinking and making.

The research identifies forms and tones of art writing that facilitate conversational spaces that hold the excess of speaking across archival gaps, in the margins, of friendship, of love, the familial and radical subjectivities enacting through speaking with. These forms include the event score (Kotz, 2001), the letter (Butler, A., 2019), the diary (Lonzi, 1978) the manifesto (Lonzi, 1970) autofiction (Kraus, 2000) autotheory (Nelson, 2015) and poetry (Notely, 2001).

The motivation for this project is driven by a desire to find a method and form that enables me to speak with myself outside of patriarchal social, educational and knowledge structures as a speaking with excess. Through this research the project articulates an important feminist method for art researchers, writers and makers looking to engage in radical conversational tones. The project identifies moments where I and others enact ‘speaking with’ coming into conversation with the gapsin legacies, my encounter with others works, my own subjectivity and materials in the studio through my practice of art writing, performative text, moving image and expanding painting practices.