A Fencing Manual for Women (ongoing)

A Fencing Manual for Women: Instructions from the 18th Century…..is a complex, three-part hand-made epic work in progress, using photography, performance, a needle and épée. It is a genre-defying funny fanny feminist work about fighting.

Part I: A lost manual depicting women fencing from 1787, authored by Elisabeth Angela later found by ‘The Revisionist Academy for the Preservation of Women’s Fighting Arts’ in 1975.

ANGELA: the well-known fencing Maestra of the 1780s. Her friends and patrons include Mary Wollstonecraft; her circle is mainly in London with occasional trips to Paris. Angela authored the manual seen here.

Her set of instructions is duly performed by IDA in Part II and continued in the future, by another performance artist, OCTAVIA FEELS, who we meet in Part III.

The development of this work was supported by a DYCP grant from Arts Council England and bursary from a-n, grants from the Gane Trust and the Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust, GRAIN and private sponsors. Contact to find out more – a fraction of the project is shown below. An artist book of the manual is in development and due to be released in 2025.

For full proposal and technical details please get in touch.

IDA: Research reveals Elisabeth Angela’s original manual was found in a box of books and ephemera, acquired by The Revisionist Academy for the Preservation of Women’s Fighting Arts (RAPWFA).est.1975. RAPWFA’s remit is to offer space for scholars in a quest to correct historical accounts of women engaged in combat activities. IDA performs the manual.

OCTAVIA FEELS: Finally meet performance artist, Octavia Feels. She works with RAPWFA (est. 1975) which still exists. She has accepted the task of re-presenting material from the original manual, written in 1787 by Elisabeth Angela, to depict what can be learned, over two hundred years since it was first passed round women’s hands in private salons.

Works here are unique, hand-perforated black and white silver-gelatin photographs. Each one has been punctured by hand, with tiny sewing needles, to create an embossed surface. Details of this depicted.

Dimensions either 140 cm high x 120 cm wide or 140 cm wide x 120 cm high. Documented with the kind support of Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol, UK. © Tom Groves