Jessica Campbell’s research-based approach has led her to explore the complex personal, political and professional relationships facilitated by the twentieth century secret radical feminist debate club named Heterodoxy. Operating between 1912–1940 in Greenwich Village, Heterodoxy brought together women from diverse professional fields, political alignments and personal backgrounds. Their debates centered around a wide range of issues relevant to their time and today, including voting access, universal child care, public health, and prison reform, among other topics.
As a visual artist and cartoonist, Campbell is interested in the ways in which combinations of seemingly disparate media, subject matter, and tone can act as tools for research and the production of knowledge. Her satirical textiles, drawings, and comics expose everyday experiences that reveal both current and historical misogyny. Campbell is particularly interested in how Heterodoxy’s strategy of interdisciplinary dialogue and the dissolve between the personal and professional could be implemented today as a way of generating creative solutions to vital social issues.
Jessica Campbell: Heterodoxy will invite the public to engage with these issues through an exhibition and lecture series—holding space for the kinds of radical conversations that were Heterodoxy’s raison d’être. Produced in collaboration with the FWM Studio, this presentation will take the form of a gathering space—an interpretation of Polly’s Restaurant in Greenwich Village, NY, an early meeting place of the group—with artworks relating to the club and its members, outfitted in an immersive tufted rug environment.
