Feminist Standard Bureau (FSB) was a two year (2016-2018) cumilative activity and project that created a recruitment space for feminist discussion, ideas, and bureaicracy. 

Artist-collaborators and participants were encouraged to analyse bureaucratic structures and languages that perpetuate imperial violence. Bureaucratic structures are embedded in government systems and military systems that are interconnected with everyday society to globalized imperialism. Often, these structures are put into place by the ethnocentric dominant power that has failed to imagine or learn from indigenous cultural systems.

The pivotal moment occurred when I learned about artist Thomas Hirschhorn with his motto, “ENERGY YES, QUALITY NO.”  He makes art with materials that are accessible to show how everyone and anyone can be an artist by acting. We can all act and give voice to silenced communities.

Hirschhorn's approaches allowed me to see art in ways I had long imagined: as an action that can influence and question the way we participate in the cultural paradigm. I’ve learned objects and materials can be the starting point to discussions which create time and space for sharing community. With his Monument project, even after the physical materials were disassembled, the energy that was put into sharing the philosophy of life was passed on, living through community members’ memories. The collective effort and energy that was shared created an imprint, leaving an invisible essence that could be felt by those who want to remember.

With Hirschhorn’s influences, project Feminist Standard Bureau cumilated in a curated space for critical dialogue by reimagining  military structures and bureaucratic procedures with an intersectional feminist perspective. This project is a collaborative effort with peers and faculty from the Intermedia Digital Arts MFA program at University of Maryland Baltimore County and artists from the local Baltimore community. Playing on the military draft system, we created a self-selective service system called the Feminist Service for Genuine Security (FSGS). The initial FSGS Task Force guided community participants through this performative display of activities and knowledge to become registered and certified as a self-selected feminist aware of the multiple waves of feminism and the need to continue learning.

Leading participants include Joan Cox, Renee Tantillo, Mollye Bendell, Rebekah Cherryhill, Jeffrey Gangwisch, Mitchell Noah, Jaclin Paul, C​hris Kojzar, Parastoo Aslanbeik, Jason Charney, Liz Faust, Zoey Howell-Brown, Kathy O’Dell, Lynn Cazabon, Rebecca Adelman, Pinar Idil Yakut, Nicole Ringle, Leah Michaels, Shana Goetsch a​nd Wombwork Production.

As I continue to  root into Baltimore, project Feminist Standard Bureau has connected me with the community to learn what we all have in common as humans, feeling the sense of belonging to each other in a globalized world.This project utilized art as a tool to unite and connect the differences we are taught to feel.