A conversation with Angela Marzullo

episode 26
Oct 22 2021

Radical feminist artist, video artist, and Italian-Swiss performer Angela Mazullo talks about artistic alter egos, motherhood, and third wave feminism

About our guest

Angela Marzullo, born in 1971 in Rümlang in the canton of Zurich, is a radical feminist artist, video artist, and Italian-Swiss performer. She uses the filmed video of her performances in a process of feminist questioning.

Angela Marzullo studied at the Haute école d'art et de design (HEAD) from 1994 to 2004 in Geneva where she obtained her diploma in 1999, as well as a postgraduate diploma in "New Media" in 2004.

Angela Marzullo defines herself as a radical feminist artist. She criticizes the sexist mechanisms that construct gendered identity from childhood, and considers culture as a possibility for the transmission of feminist struggle.

In 2005, she explored the intersection of motherhood and feminism with Performing SCUM. This work explores the question of the modality of transmission of feminist themes, sometimes violent, to the younger generation in an experimental filmed form, where the artist's two daughters, Stella and Lucie7, re-enact with modified words scenes between Carole Rossoupoulos and Delphine Seyrig working on the SCUM manifesto by Valérie Solenas. This exploration of the private/public divide, traditional feminist themes, becomes recurrent in her work.

Links

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Rivolta Femminile, Rome, 1970s
Cassette number 15
Series of tapes recorded between 1971 and 1972 by small groups of Italian radical feminists, while exercising together the practice of autocoscienza (similar to consciousness-raising).

“It is not easy all of a sudden to be confronted with your own violence”

Video still of the transcription of
Rivolta Femminile, Rome, 1970s





“How to Take Care of Radical Feminism”
Published by Angela Marzullo and HEAD — Geneva, 2018

“The geniuses were produced by the artistic system”

“B-side/Back Office Feminism/Transcription Marathon ”
The first marathon will take place within the artist-run space one gee in fog in Geneva, 2018

“Men must now really take their decisions and get out of this patriarchy so that we can really organize our political system”

Still Gloss 05
Makita Speaking in Tongues
The technique of "speaking in tongues", speaking in tongues, is used here as a performative language. Glossolalia is the act of speaking or praying aloud in a language-like language, unknown to the speaker, or in a sequence of incomprehensible syllables.




“1918, NEW YORK”Makita’s Magic Carpet 
Credits : Sandra Pointet, Marta Revuelta

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Today I’m delighted to welcome Angela Mazulla to the show to talk about her artistic alter ego, how she has combined motherhood and art, and a unique oral history project she has nurtured over the past several years titled, “The Archives of Radical Feminism.”

Today’s podcast is unique in that it was originally conducted in French, and the interview is overlaid with an English translation.

Her artistic alter ego

Angela was born to an Italian father and a Swiss mother and grew up in a small village near Zurich, where there was a great deal of liberal thought and conversations about progressive political movements. This shaped a great deal of her early thinking and influenced the direction of her artistic exploration later.

After she moved to Geneva for art school, she created an alter ego for her art performances named “Makita.” She says this allowed her to have more freedom to experiment with more sensitive and provocative subjects in her performances than if she’d performed under her own legal name.

Angela says that “Makita” is a role that she plays that lends more power and depth to her performances, but because it is an alter ego, she doesn’t have to inhabit that role all the time, which makes it possible for her to be more courageous and provocative in her performances.

Being a mother and an artist

Angela says that she always wanted to be a mother, but unlike many women, deliberately chose to get pregnant with her children while she was also in school. At the time, this was a radical, defiant act because many women either hid their pregnancies or dropped out of school.

However, not only did she have two daughters, she also found ways to include them in her work, ultimately creating a project called “Homeschool,” which features her daughters reenacting portions of critical texts to highlight the childishness of certain critical actions.

The Archives of Radical Feminism

For the last five years, Angela has been working on an oral history project of feminism, which includes both recording conversations among contemporary women about critical topics, and transcribing an audio archive of 1970s radical feminist Italian consciousness-raising sessions.

These conversations and transcriptions raise the questions of how feminism has evolved over the last several decades. It also cemented Angela’s position that feminism is a movement best done by groups of women.

She says that as a performer, she is a lone activist. But once she began working with small groups of women, she realized how feminism is a moment of many and that it is a collective vibration.

Angela’s Feminist ABC for Raw and Radical Women in the Arts !Big THX to Angela!
 

                                                                         
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Laura Escudé
Musician, educator, and mentor