Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Wimmins' Dance, Benefit for Girls' Own, the New Sydney Feminist Newspaper

Wimmins' Dance, Benefit for Girls' Own, the New Sydney Feminist Newspaper

Silkscreen print on paper, Wimmins’ Warehouse Screen-printers 

PXD 673/26

Purchased 1994


The Wimmins’ Warehouse Screen-printers created posters showing women as mothers, workers, writers and friends. The warehouse was run as a women’s collective from 1979 to 1981 in a five-storey warehouse in Sydney’s Haymarket area. An unofficial headquarters for the social and cultural activity of the Women’s Liberation Movement, the warehouse applied the values of feminism, equality and collectivism to all creative output which extended throughout the ensuing decades into a broad range of women’s activities. This was especially true of the Wimmins’ Warehouse Screen-printers and Girls’ Own newspaper collectives, which produced artworks and published articles without creators’ names.


The Library’s poster archive shows the emerging political voice of Australia's women’s movement through poster art. The collection shows how the decorative style of poster art was used to actively communicate information to a mass audience and as a political tool highlighting social issues.


Coinciding with the election of the Whitlam government in 1972 – spurred on by feminism and the anti-war movement – collectives and community-based groups formed to encourage women to participate in the women's movement. Ethics of feminism, collectivism, equality and working art extended from these early groups into second wave feminist activism. 


Poster art has evolved significantly from the earliest posters produced in Australia, printed in the early 19th century and featuring text only, to those created in Sydney during the 1970s and 1980s. Posters produced by the Women's Warehouse Collective (1979-1981) were characterised by bold designs and effective use of photographic and graphic screen print techniques. They act as visual time capsules that answer many questions posed by today's young women.


The 1970s resurgence of printmaking in Australia emerged as a consequence of Gough Whitlam's Labor government abolishing tertiary education fees and introducing Advanced Colleges of Education. More training opportunities for artists from different socio-economic backgrounds brought a range of different perspectives to contemporary art. 


Screen-printing was understood as a powerful political tool. Among those who learned to screen-print in feminist and political groups, there was a shared understanding of the need to pass on this valuable tool. The Wimmins Warehouse Screen printers was one of the most significant collectives to operate in the Ultimo warehouse space.


Posters like these were produced by women to highlight issues that affected their lives. Monthly discos, band nights and cabarets were a major feature at the Women’s Warehouse, doubling as enjoyable social activities and fundraising events for rent. Women’s dances were cast as utopian spaces for joyous self-expression, female friendship and lesbian flirtations.