This book examines the intersections between debates in critical studies of men and masculinities and debates on visual representation, investigating representations of men and masculinities in contemporary culture and examples of visual art that deconstruct those representations. It attends to various spaces associated with heteronormativity, including the visible domains of working life, leisure and public discourses, as well as less visible domains such as private spaces, lifestyle, desire and sexual agency.

Anna Sznajder centers this ethnography of gendered creative practice in the lace-making community of Bobowa, Poland. Grounded in rural gender studies and feminist epistemology, Polish Lace Makers is a pivotal historical and modern account of the social and economic behaviors of entrepreneurial craftswomen tasked with preserving the originality and symbolic value of lace. Sznajder traces the evolving work strategies and occupational identities of this community from the early 19th century up to the modern day, outlining the challenges of World War II, communist rule, and socialist Poland. The case studies included in this account are emulative of the larger struggle of female entrepreneurs to self-manage, innovate, create, and provide for themselves and their families. This book is recommended for scholars of anthropology, sociology, gender studies, and European studies.

This book examines the intersections between debates in critical studies of men and masculinities and debates on visual representation, investigating representations of men and masculinities in contemporary culture and examples of visual art that deconstruct those representations. It attends to various spaces associated with heteronormativity, including the visible domains of working life, leisure and public discourses, as well as less visible domains such as private spaces, lifestyle, desire and sexual agency.

Using an arts-based inquiry, Precarious Spaces addresses current concerns around the instrumentality and agency of art in the context of the precarity of daily life. The book offers a survey of socially and community-engaged art practices in South America, focusing in particular on Brazil's 'informal' situation, and contributes much to the ongoing debate of the possibility for change through social, environmental and ecological solutions. The individual chapters, compiled by Katarzyna Kosmala and Miguel Imas, present a wide spectrum of contemporary social agency models with a particular emphasis on detailed case studies and local histories. Featuring critical reflections on the spaces of urban voids, derelict buildings, self-built communities such as favela and roadside occupations, Precarious Spaces will make readers question their assumptions about precarity, and life in precarious realms.

This innovative book represents a timely intervention in both critical discourses on video and new media art, as well as examination of gender in post-Socialist contexts. The chapters explore how encounters between art and technology have been implicated in the representation and analysis of gender, critically reflecting current debates and politics across the region and Europe.The book offers a diversity of analytical contexts, addressing interwoven histories across post-Socialist Europe, and engages the paradigms of art practice and the visual cultures such histories uphold. Contributors have given a broad interpretation to the questions of video, media and performance, as well as to mediation in relation to art and gender, reflecting on a wide range of subjects, from the curatorial role to artistic practice, cross-cultural collaboration, co-production, democracy and representation, and impasses in securing streamlined identities. The volume brings together rigorously theoretical and visually comprehensive examinations of examples of works, featuring artists such as: Bernd and Hilla Becher; Anna Daucikova; Izabella Gustowska; Judit Kele; Komar and Melamid; Andrzej Karmasz; Marko Markovic; Oleg Mavromatti; Tanja Ostojic; Nebojsa Seric Soba; Mare Tralla; Ulay and Abramovic and others.Contributors: Inga Fonar Cocos, Mark Gisbourne, Marina Grzinic, Beata Hock, Katarzyna Kosmala, Pawel Leszkowicz, Iliyana Nedkova, Agata Rogos, Boryana Rossa, Aneta Stojnic, Josip Zanki. Preface by Katy Deepwell.