Art Basel in Miami 2025, December 4

Conversations | What do (women) footballers want?                               

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Suzanne Lacy,&nbsp;Multidisciplinary artist and educator, Los Angeles&nbsp; Ali Riley,&nbsp;Former Angel City FC Captain, Advocate, Storyteller, Los Angeles&nbsp; Moderator:&nbsp;Hans Ulrich Obrist,&nbsp;Artistic Director, Serpentine, London&nbsp;
In What do women (footballers) want? (2025), pioneering American artist&nbsp;Suzanne&nbsp;Lacy unpacks the gender politics inherent to soccer. The five-channel film was developed in collaboration with Manchester City and Netherlands&nbsp;forward&nbsp;Vivianne&nbsp;Miedema,&nbsp;Angel City Football Club,&nbsp;and&nbsp;New Zealand&nbsp;national&nbsp;team captain Ali Riley. Together, they lead a bold inquiry into how female footballers are changing society’s attitudes toward women – and how cultural&nbsp;perceptions&nbsp;and practices shape the way we see players and the sport itself. The piece was conceived for&nbsp;the exhibition&nbsp;‘Football City, Art United’, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, footballer Juan Mata,&nbsp;and&nbsp;writer Josh Willdigg for&nbsp;the&nbsp;Manchester International Festival&nbsp;in&nbsp;2025.&nbsp;In this panel, Lacy&nbsp;reconvened with Riley to discuss the work’s key questions: Who is football for? Who is excluded? And what might it look like if reimagined entirely from the ground up by women? 
Suzanne Lacy&nbsp;is a Los Angeles-based artist and a pioneer of socially engaged public performance art. Her installations, videos, and performances deal with sexual violence, rural and urban poverty, incarceration, labor, and aging.&nbsp;In 2019, she had a career retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.&nbsp;She is a professor at the&nbsp;Roski&nbsp;School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California and a resident artist at 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica.&nbsp;&nbsp;
An Olympian and World Cup captain for New Zealand,&nbsp;Ali Riley&nbsp;led Angel City FC and helped redefine women’s football globally before turning her focus to creativity and storytelling. Blending sport and culture, she explores how women’s football&nbsp;shapes&nbsp;identity,&nbsp;representation, and belonging in the modern game.
Hans Ulrich Obrist&nbsp;is the artistic director&nbsp;of&nbsp;Serpentine&nbsp;in London, and the senior advisor at LUMA Arles. Prior to this, he was the curator of the&nbsp;Musée&nbsp;d’Art&nbsp;Moderne&nbsp;de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show ‘World Soup (The Kitchen Show)’ in 1991, he has curated more than 350 exhibitions. Obrist’s&nbsp;recent&nbsp;publications include&nbsp;James Lovelock: Ever Gaia&nbsp;(2023);&nbsp;Remember to Dream&nbsp;(2023); and&nbsp;Une&nbsp;vie&nbsp;in progress&nbsp;(2023).&nbsp;

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