Guerrilla Girlhood Glitter Guild: Researching Hidden Hoards of Tween Treasures

Abstract

Inspired by the recently-discovered Staffordshire Hoard treasures from medieval times, a group of three researchers called the Guerilla Girlhood Guild created a contemporary “tween” hoard of personal possessions, installations, photographs of objects (e.g., cell phones, jewelry, toys), speculative historical documents, and social networking artifacts. In this speculative narrative, my colleagues and I write from the perspectives of archeologists living in 2013, who discovered the tween artifacts from circa 2113. This inquiry illuminates contemporary issues of girl culture, bullying, and iconicity of girlhood material culture. The guild members and specialties include: myself, an art educator interested in gender and adolescent visual culture, a medievalist art historian and gender studies scholar, and a photographer/studio artist who is also the parent of adolescents. Our project suggests feminist reconceptualization of treasure, the acts of hoarding and archiving, and material cultures of girlhood.