May 9, 2023

In Conversation: Penny Slinger & Polly Borland

On the occasion of Penny Slinger and Polly Borland's exhibition PlayPen at Lyles & King, the artists discuss their collaboration with Speciwomen founder & director Philo Cohen.

Online Viewing Room & Press Release for PlayPen can be found here.

About the artists

Penny Slinger (b.1947, London, UK) has had work exhibited at MoCA, Westport, US; Camden Arts Centre, London, UK; British Museum, London, UK; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, SC; Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Norwich, UK; Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, UK; Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK; The Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, PL; Monnaie de Paris, Paris, FR; National Museum in the Arts, Washington D.C., US; Hayward Gallery, London, UK; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, DE; Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Trondheim, NO; Tate St. Ives, St. Ives, UK; and Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK; among many others. Slinger lives and works in Los Angeles.

Polly Borland (b. 1959, Australia) has had work exhibited at National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, AUS; National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, AUS; National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, AUS; Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, US; and Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, AUS; among many others. Her work is in public and private collections including The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York, US; National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, AUS; and Damien Hirst’s Murderme Collection. Borland lives and works in Los Angeles.


Your support is what makes what we do possible.

Explore our publications and subscribers program below.

Speciwomen Issue 1: First Interviews

This is the very first print issue of Speciwomen Magazine featuring a set of first interviews of women artists from all over the world, conducted and photographed by women from all over the world.

Speciwomen Magazine is a self-published annual publication.

7 x 11 in / 17 x 24 cm

130 pages + cover

Matte paper

Artists in the issue: Gala Prudent, Penelope Anstruther, Amy Leon, Samia Finnerty, Rhombie Sandoval, Neah Gray, SoFly Butterfly, Elena Mottola, Adinah Dancyger, Tatsumi Romano, Indira Cunningham, Verity Azario, The MP Shift, Erica Archambault, Georgia Kester, Zora Casebere, Julia Sherman, Sarah Jérôme

$20.00

Speciwomen Issue 2: Transnational Narratives

This is the second print issue of Speciwomen Magazine featuring a set of interviews of transnational women artists from all over the world, conducted and photographed by transnational women from all over the world.

Speciwomen Magazine is a self-published annual publication.

7 x 11 in / 17 x 24 cm

120 pages + cover

Matte paper

Artists in the issue: Melek Zertal, OWO, Louise Le Meur Rasmussen, Akua Shabaka, Alex Westfall, Pascale Ussel, Lia Kim, Scarlett Lindeman, Alejandra Guanipa, Maia Ruth Lee, Crisha Arivalagan, Emma Noelle

$20.00

Speciwomen Issue 3: Fluidity

This new issue explores fluidity and queerness, featuring womxn and femme artists of all backgrounds that work in hybrid art forms, and work around moving beyond the binary, gender norms and labels from our society.

Speciwomen Magazine is a self-published annual publication.

7 x 11 in / 17 x 24 cm

150 pages + cover

Matte paper

Artists in the issue: Alex Nawotka, Opashona Gosh, Mari Nagaoka, Maral Bolouri, Young Merlot, Josh Quinton, Zhamak Fullad, Anne-Sophie Guillet, Les Jesus, Dress Up, Gina Piersanti, Noha Choukrallah, Habibitch, Ranma Yu, Yola Jimenez, Han Being, Carolina Larrosa, Grey, Erkan Affan

$20.00

Speciwomen Issue 4: I Belong To This

This new issue is a catalogue of the show I Belong To This curated by Justine Kurland at Huxley–Parlour in London in Fall 2021.

I belong to this brings seventeen artists together around themes of self and family, private rites and communal ritual, along a continuum of becoming. The title of the show is from Ariana Reines’s poem “Save the World”, and can be read as a declaration of identification, a promise of solidarity, or a blurring of self into multitudes. These artists mark an intractable this. The camera points, more like an ear than an index finger, in the direction of what is felt rather than seen and to those invisible threads that hold us together.” — Justine Kurland

Speciwomen Magazine is a self-published annual publication.

7 x 11 in / 17 x 24 cm

160 pages + cover

Matte paper

Artists in the issue: Genesis Báez , Jennifer Calivas, Naima Green, AK Jenkins, Sydney Mieko King, Keli Safia Maksud, Jacky Marshall, Qiana Mestrich, Shala Miller, Cheryl Mukherji, Diana Palermo, Calafia Sánchez-Touzé, Keisha Scarville, Wendy Small, Gwen Smith, Anne Vetter, Annie Hsiao-Ching Wang.

$20.00