NY FEM FACTORY’s Feminist Aesthetics

May 27, 2019

This article is part of our artist Spotlight Series.

Founded in 2016 by New York–based artist Jessica Yatrofsky, NY FEM Factory is a collective that focuses on empowering women through exhibitions and live events around the world. From literary readings to panel discussions on beauty and gender as well as shows with VR installations, they’ve brought their feminist creative practice to cities including Istanbul, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, Toronto, Berlin and more. The founding of the collective came about when Yatrofsky launched ‘Pink Privacy,’ a book of poetry she wrote (mostly in the shower) in 72 hours. The poems are short, but not always sweet. Likewise, the projects created by NY FEM Factory prompt discussions about topics that are universal but not always comfortable.

Jessica Yatrofsky and Dana Caputo at ‘Bad Girl,’ 2019 // Photo by Peter Cairns

During this year’s Gallery Weekend, for example, Yatrofsky joined artist and collective member Dana Caputo in hosting ‘Bad Girl,’ a weekend-long exhibition at Teufelsberg in Grunewald, supported by the Institut für Alles Mögliche. Yatrofsky’s video ‘Cunt Keeper featuring Lil Touches’ – which is a kind of poetry video for a piece in ‘Pink Privacy’ – was projected against a dilapidating wall, in front of which stood a pink phone. Visitors could pick up the phone and listen to women reciting poems during previous readings hosted by the collective around the world. Caputo and other neon artists, like Kate Hush, selected topical words and developed neon signs that quite literally spelled out relevant themes, as well as some that depicted figures like Frida Kahlo.

While Yatrofsky and Caputo held down the fort during Gallery Weekend, for other events NY FEM Factory has invited locally-based artists and poets to collaborate. Together with international writers and artists, the collective has curated group readings at locations like Soho House and developed immersive exhibition concepts at the Satellite Art Show 2017 and Pulse Art Fair 2018, both during Art Basel Miami Beach. The key to all of their projects is authentic accessibility: no matter how dense the topic, the results are loud and proud expressions of femininity and everything it can entail.