The feminist museum hack as an aesthetic practice of possibility

Abstract

This article outlines the central components, foundations and key activities of the Feminist Museum Hack, an investigative, pedagogical, analytical and interventionist tool we have designed to explore patriarchal assumptions behind the language, images and stragecrafting (positioning, lighting) of museums and art galleries. We also share findings from a study of student and community participants who employed the Hack in a museum in Canada and an art gallery in England. While differences existed due to institutional genres, findings showed participants’ ability to see and to reimagine absences, objectification, fragmentation, and double-standards and apply these to the world beyond the institution’s walls. As a form of pedagogy of possibility, the Hack encourages critique, just ire and the imagination. As it hones visual literacy skills it emboldens participants to challenge the authority of the museum narratives and to engage in creative practices of agency and activism.