Sarah Irvin received a BFA from the University of Georgia (2008) and an MFA from George Mason University (2016). Her work has been featured in international exhibits and conferences on feminist theory and practice and in numerous solo exhibitions. She is included in the collections of the Try-Me Urban Restoration Project, Capital One, and the Federal Reserve Bank. Irvin is represented by Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in New York and Page Bond Gallery in Richmond, Va.
Abstract
The Artist Parent Index is an online, searchable database of entries about artists and exhibits exploring reproduction and the caretaking of one’s children from a first-person perspective. It contains resources supporting these practices and is produced as a free research tool for students, artists, educators, curators, and the general public. This article describes what propelled the creation of the Index, outlines its structure, and explores its function and meaning. The Index and the circumstances in which it was created present a model for greater equality of participation in both the academic setting and the production of contemporary art discourses. The function of the Index reveals its place within feminist reworkings of the archive as a site of intervention in art historical and academic discourses. This article defines the project as a creative act effecting change in institutional norms as a response to inequality and raises subsequent ethical considerations that arise from the position of archivist as creator.
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