TITLE OF THE WORK: PROPOSAL "CORREOS" (POSTAL SERVICE) (*)

PROPOSAL TO WOMEN ARTISTS
TYPE OF WORK: Postal - Action and Performance- Action.
SCOPE OF THE ACTION: All Women Artists of the planet.

PROPOSAL
The action consists in mobilizing women artists to send all their catalogues, triptychs, diptychs and publications, by registered post in bubbled envelopes (Jiffy bags) sized A3 and A4 (preserve the receipts in order to be able to follow up remittance) to the following address:

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Servicio de Documentación
C/ Santa Isabel nº 52
28012 Madrid - España

In the obverse of the envelope will be consigned, in the centre right, the address of the addressee Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) and in the superior left angle , the return address of the artist-sender . The selection of the stamps and decisions concerning the creative use of the rear will be open to personal criteria.

DATES
The shipments will be carried out between the 18th of March and 31st of May of 2010. This action may be repeated annually.

AIMS
The creation of a complete archive of the work of women artists, thereby helping the work of critics and researchers and making the study of their work possible.

REASONS FOR THE ACTION
During the sessions "Women within the Art System", Culture Ministry, Madrid, 8-11 March 2010, organized by MAV (Mujeres en las Artes Visuales - Women in the Visual Arts) a conclusion was reached that it is fundamental to implement archive and documentation work as form of recording the work of the women artists in order to help the research and monitoring of their output.
Every now and then libraries and documentation centres, consider the possibility of disposing of booklets, leaflets and small catalogues. With them also disappear, the only traditional, however precarious, assistance to document the work of women artists, who can rarely count on catalogues of major entity.

Since: statistics reflect the existing inequalities between the position of male and female artists, the political intentions to amend these deficiencies and the good receptivity of the of the MNCARS´s Director, this project proposes an active collaboration with the Museum, to convert it into an obligatory referent within the international panorama as a documentation and archive centre of the work of women artists.

DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTION
The action consists of two parts:
The first part is a Postal Action, entitled “MAIL”. It consists in the shipment of catalogues and serves as a tribute to the public mail service which once again is collaborating with women by allowing them access to the world’s monuments, in this case the MNCARS (evoking as reference the ancient feminine custom of collecting postcards as a substitute for the forbidden travel to the “places of art”).
The manifold semantic content of the word “CORREOS” is complementary to this action, which always aims at being positive.
The second part is the Action Performance which materializes in the reception and opening of the envelopes. It unveils the catalogues and integrates them thereinafter in the library or documentation centre. It is devoted to the body of archivists and librarians, one of the first professions to be made up almost completely by women. The envelopes can be kept as a souvenir of this Action.

JUSTIFICATION OF DATES
Month of March: where Woman’s Day is celebrated and the 19th of that same month:
The feast of San Joseph, day of the Father, that was not the father
Month of May: month of the Virgin, (virgin - mother) and the 18th of that same month : Museum Day
To take advantage of the symbolism of these dates, as a reflection on the rationality of our tradition that, as so many other traditions, have determined the position of the women in all the societies on planet Earth.

INTENTIONS
This project wants to be directed to the greater possible number of women artists, therefore its dissemination depends to a large extent on the national and/or international redirection or forwarding of this proposal that each one achieves. The MNCARS has been selected because it is in the geographical area where the idea aroused, in an effort to change a disproportionate male inclination and convert it, as of now, into a feminist referent.
Those women artists whose countries, due to costliness or inefficiency, can not dipose of the postal service, have the option of selecting the museum of their geographical zone that they estimate most efficient, active and competent to accomplish this
action.

INFORMATION CONCERNING THE PROPOSAL

Idea and structure of the project: Belén Franco

Date: 12th March 2010

Development: Mª Antonia de Castro

Support and mailing: MAV (Women in Visual Arts Association)

Translations and thanks : to Santiago Franco, Noni Lazaga, Gabriela Valls, Cristina Ward. and all those who would like to collaborate with this project by translating it to their language. (Translations may be signed)

Performers : All women artists sending their catalogues and all those people who will work at its delivery, reception and documentation.

Action´s dates: During the months of March, April and May 2010.

(*) Translator's Note: in Spanish the word "correos" has three meanings: 1) post office, 2) reaching an orgasm and 3) to move oneself in order to make some room.