female trouble is friendship based collective. Does it mean we are all friends? Does it mean that friendship comes before work? We usually cry when we meet. Is crying a feminist practice? We often hurt each other. We often apologise. We try to empower and support each other. We try to be as honest as we can because otherwise it doesn’t make sense. It is very common that we don’t see things eye to eye. Much of the work is about letting go of control, letting go of being fully in charge. Knowing that your signature is on something that if you did it by yourself it would look completetly different. If it’s less then the two of us it’s not the collective. It’s often just the two of us.

we all have different ideas about what “feminism” is, about what “feminist art” is and about whether our work is “feminist” and why. Usually the manfiestation of the conversation around these matters is an event or a practice or an action.

So much of our communication is happening online. So much is coordination. Coordinating feelings, ideas, thoughts, people. Sometimes we meet for half a day or half a night. We tell each other what we’ve been up to and what our plans for the rest of the year are. We share insights and desires. Then we get practical and write these insights and desires into events in our planners. I want to dance more. I need to spend more time with myself. No more computer art. We are not a production house. We invite our friends into the work. We expand and contract according to the situation.

female trouble is constant negotiation between being I and being WE. I am ME but also WE. It’s a WE in which the ME needs to stay firmly ME whilst looking at the WE. And the WE doesn’t exist if there’s no ME. We care about different things, about some things we all care.

"Kinging, Queening and the sensation of gender", Drag Workshop with Zinzi Buchanan and Sheena Mcgrandles, Photo by Judy Landkammer