Jessica Campbell in conversation with DJ Hellerman

Portrait of Jessica Campbell. Photo credit: LF Documentation; Birth Control Review, May 1919. Cartoon by Lou Rogers.

Discover how feminist groups of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Heterodoxy, have shaped how we live today. How might their example help us create a space and structure for discussing the issues of our own time?

Join this virtual talk with artist Jessica Campbell and curator DJ Hellerman. Following the artist’s presentation on the research that led to her FWM solo exhibition, the two will discuss the impact of feminist clubs and lessons their successes and failures may hold for today.

Organized in conjunction with Jessica Campbell: Heterodoxy



Jessica Campbell is a multidisciplinary artist and author working in comics, fibers, painting, drawing, and performance. Drawing on a wide range of influences, including science fiction, art world politics, and her evangelical upbringing, Campbell explores ways to reflect heterogeneity through a combination of disparate media, subjects, and tone. Whether through cartoony depictions or the use of unorthodox material, her work often wields humor as a device to help one come to terms with its darker subject matter.

Campbell is the author of three graphic novels, including the forthcoming RAVE (Drawn and Quarterly, 2022), Hot or Not: 20th Century Male Artists (Koyama Press, 2016) and XTC69 (Koyama Press, 2018). Her comics have appeared in The New Yorker, Hyperallergic and the Nib, among other publications. Her Chicago Works show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018–2019) was reviewed in Art in America, Hyperallergic, and Juxtapoz. Other solo and two-person exhibitions include Field Projects, New York (2019); Roots & Culture, Chicago (2015), and La Galerie Laroche/Joncas, Montreal (2012–2013). Her work has been included in group shows at the John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI (2022); The Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton (2022); Richard Heller, Los Angeles (2019); the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario (2019); the ICA, Baltimore (2018); Monique Meloche, Chicago (2017); and was included in Chicago Comics: 1960s to Now at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2021). She is represented by Western Exhibitions, Chicago, IL.

DJ Hellerman is Chief Curator & Director of Curatorial Affairs at The Fabric Workshop & Museum, where he leads the research and implementation of artist-centered projects, exhibitions, and programming. He is committed to building relationships based on trust, effective communication, and vulnerability to allow for the openness and intimacy essential to creating meaningful work. Working with artists across context-sensitive, intergenerational, and interdisciplinary projects, DJ focuses on artistic process; the relationship between art, technology, and spirituality; place-based art making; early use of video as an artform; and the development of alternative cultural institutions. Recent exhibitions include Henry Taylor: Nothing Change, Nothing Strange, among many others.