Image description: A close-up image of an artwork hanging on a white. It is brown hessian canvas with black text that reads "she sits, floating in a single pocket of cellulose acetate”.

Year: 2017

Medium: Charcoal and mixed media on hessian, photography

File Under Female was a collaborative project created by Bella Milroy when they were artist-in-residence at the Women’s Art Library, (WAL) Goldsmiths, University of London. The residency came about as part of the Birth Rites Collection Bi-Annual Award prize which they won in 2015, and the project evolved during 2017 into a solo show of their work, publication and panel event.

Their show was featured at Goldsmith’s Kingsway Corridor; a combination of sculptural, charcoal hand-drawn text-based artworks on large hessian canvases, and a series of photographic works. Accompanying these works was a publication made in collaboration with Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad of The White Pube. The piece was featured in the exhibition for viewers to take away, as well as being distributed across Derbyshire Libraries as part of National Libraries Week. 

The majority of the artworks created for this project were made in response to a particular aspect of the archive at WAL belonging to the artist Symrath Patti. Special thanks to Symrath for her generosity in allowing her archive to be featured in this project.

You can visit WAL and see Symrath’s archive and many other incredible artists at WAL, along with the original publication created for this project. The archive is carefully managed and curated by Althea Greenan. It is with great thanks to Althea for her invaluable and continued support in bringing this project to life. Go to the WAL website for more details https://www.gold.ac.uk/make/

To find out more details of the project, how Bella worked with the Women’s Art Library or to request a hard copy of the publication, please contact bellamilroy@gmail.com

Click here for a PDF of the publication

Image description: Black and white photograph of a hand in a transparent tube. The hand extends from the bottom left corner and the wrist is visible with the cuff of a knitted jumper and a silvery banded ring on the ring finger.

Image description: An artwork hanging on a white wall. It is a simple geometric line drawing on dark mustard canvas with a sheet of film over it that gives it a glossy sheen. It is not clear what the drawing is of.