The Sick Bed of Alice James, 1892

The Salon for a Speculative Future was inaugurated in March 2019 in celebration of Women’s History Month, as a platform for cross-generational and cross-disciplinary exchange. Reflecting on the current political and economic global situation, in particular the exponential acceleration of a technology-driven platform capitalism, many women advocate positive change for an ecologically sustainable and humane future. In The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin argues that science fiction does not simply extrapolate from the present to predict the future—instead, the fiction writer engages in thought-experiments where ideas and intuition move within the confines set by the experiment. This book hosts imaginative thinking by seventy-five women artists, sharing their influences, inspired by women’s contributions to diverse fields, from art, education, and science to political activism. Salon for a Speculative Future honours and shares insights and experimental thinking towards a positive future.

Contributors:
ULI AIGNER | FELICITY ALLEN | EDWINA ASHTON | INGRID BERTHON-MOINE | MONICA BIAGIOLI | SUTAPA BISWAS | SARAH BODMAN | EMMA BOLLAND | CÉCILE EMMANUELLE BORRA | SIMONA BRINKMANN | ALISON J. CARR | RACHEL CATTLE | SUKI CHAN | MARIA CHEVSKA | KIM COLEMAN | SUSAN COLLINS | KIRSTEN COOKE | FRAN COTTELL | JUDITH COWAN | ANNE-MARIE CREAMER | MIKEY CUDDIHY | EC DAVIES | NOOSHIN FARHID | SUSAN FINLAY | ANNABEL FREARSON | RACHEL GARFIELD | APRIL GERTLER | LAURA GODFREY-ISAACS | ALTHEA GREENAN | JOHANNA HÄLLSTEN & MARY ROSE O’NEILL | MINNA HAUKKA | SAM HODGE | SUSAN JOHANKNECHT | SHARON KIVLAND | LIZZIE LLOYD | KATHARINA LUDWIG | RUTH MACLENNAN | LAURA MALACART | MELANIE MANCHOT | CARMEN MARISCAL | KATHARINE MEYNELL | JO MITCHELL | CHRISTINA MITRENTSE | SUZANNE MOONEY | MARTINA MULLANEY | RUTH NOVACZEK | MONIKA OECHSLER | REDELL OLSEN | JAYNE PARKER | JANETTE PARRIS | ALICIA PAZ | HESTIA PEPPÉ | HELEN ROBERTSON | KARIN RUGGABER | LAURIE SCHWARTZ | REBECCA SCOTT | HELEN SEAR | LENA SÉRAPHIN | ANNA SHERBANY | NAOMI SIDERFIN | PAM SKELTON | RACHEL SMITH | STEPHANIE SPINDLER | CATHY STEED |JO STOCKHAM | DIANA TAYLOR | MIMEI THOMPSON | MO THROP | MIRIAM THYES | RENEE VAUGHAN SUTHERLAND | MARIE VON HEYL | JESSICA VOORSANGER | JULIE WESTERMAN | SARAH WOOD | ELIZABETH WRIGHT |

Anne-Marie Creamer's contribution was to create a section of the book, text and image called, THE SICK BED OF ALICE JAMES, 1892 This included creative writing thinking about Alice James, the ill bed-ridden sister of William and Henry James. I present Alice as an innovator in the space of exploring 'ill'being' and crip time at a time when this was unusual, even eccentric. The text was set against a drawing I had done of my spine and nervous system, taken from MRIs during a health crisis.

‘A sorely-needed compendium of feminist inspiration and imagination to raise our spirits during dark times. As Ursula Le Guin slyly proposed, if you wanted to know about our world, pick a woman who has lived for decades and has been dismissed by all around her. In these contributions we can revel in the power of women across history and in art.’
–> Catherine Grant, Goldsmiths, University of London

‘Readers in search for a feminist artistic canon will be disappointed. What this collection offers instead is a cluster of heterogenous and fragmentary transhistorical encounters, lived or imagined, with the potential to grow into feminist alliances beyond the page. As for the future, the artist-contributors to this Salon have liberated themselves from progressivist fantasies, which makes their speculations truly worth reading.’
–> Alexandra Kokoli, Middlesex University, London

‘Absorbing and addictive, these writerly remains from the feminist studio weave a complex milieu, a web of histories and imagined relations in shards of vibrant prose. Forged by ambivalent feeling, the assembled voices, figures, relations—some familiar, some new—suggest a possible answer to the following question: how to write histories of female collectivity. This is a collectivity of the unaffiliated, a non-linear dispersal including both feminist heroines and unremembered handmaidens.’ –> Siona Wilson, CUNY, New York

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