Rebel Girls: A Survey of Canadian Feminist Videotapes 1974–1988
# Rebel Girls: A Survey of Canadian Feminist Videotapes 1974–1988

Rebel Girls: A Survey of Canadian Feminist Videotapes 1974–1988 was an exhibition curated by Susan Ditta at the National Gallery of Canada that ran from 14 February 1989 to 21 May 1989 as part of the Video & Film by Artists Series.

The exhibition travelled in Canada from 7 June 1989 to 15 February 1990.

The exhibition was a major survey, featuring nearly 16 hours of running time, covering 14 years of production, and providing an "opportunity to gain an historical perspective on the use of the medium by Canadian feminist film producers."

## Exhibition details

The curator used the exhibition to address women's position in television and Canadian video production.

The chronological start of the show was Lisa Steele’s piece Birthday Suit – with scars and defects, produced in 1974. The other pieces, of which there were 32 tapes (counting Anne Ramsden’s trilogy Manufactured Romance as a single work), were organized by theme into seven programmes: The Body Politic, Requiem for Romance, The Personal is Political, Memory, Mythology, Desire, and She Works Hard for Her Money.

A common theme amongst many of the tapes is "elements of feminist video intervention (recording our histories, the personal as political, reclaiming the female body as subject rather than spectacle)". Other issues covered by the video work include lesbian sex, nudity, sexual harassment, and "slashing".

## Videos, artwork, and artists

| Title | Date | Artist |
| - | - | - |
| Concerned Aboriginal Women | 1981 | Amelia Productions |
| Playing With Fire | 1986 | Marusya Bociurkiw |
| Scars | 1987 | Lorna Boschman |
| Delicate Issue | 1979 | Kate Craig |
| Heroics: Definitions | 1984 | Sara Diamond |
| Chaperons Rouges | 1979 | Helen Doyle and Hélène Bourgault |
| No Small Change: The Story of the Eaton's Strike | 1985 | Emma Productions |
| Relative Activities | 1984 | Paula Fairfield |
| The Last Screening Room: A Valentine | 1984 | Vera Frenkel |
| On Fait Toutes Du Show Business | 1984 | Nicole Giguere |
| Quebecoiserient | 1976 | Diane Heffernan and Suzanne Vertue |
| Hormone Warzone | 1984 | Hummer Sisters |
| Pure Virtue | 1985 | Tanya Mars |
| Frankly, Shirley | 1987 | Marg Moores |
| The Fleck Women | 1978 | Kem Murch |
| Life on Our Planet | 1987 | Tess Payne |
| Comptines | 1986 | Diane Poitras |
| Manufactured Romance | 1985 | Anne Ramsden |
| Birthday Suit – with scars and defects | 1974 | Lisa Steele |
| Hot Chicks on TV | 1986 | Elizabeth Vander Zaag |
| 1932 | 1988 | Susan Rynard |
