EVENTS
* press on titles for direct
links to each event
APRIL2015
WED01APR
JENNA BLISS: INTO THIS RECOVERY CENTRE @ SOUTH LONDON GALLERY
19:00 (£5/£3conc)
For this new performance Jenna Bliss draws on the history of the Lincoln Detox in the South Bronx, New York.
In the 1960s and 70s the South Bronx was one of the poorest communities in the United States and consumed
by heroin addiction. As a result in 1970 the Lincoln Detox was initiated following the occupation of Lincoln
Hospital by local addicts,Think Lincoln a group of doctors from the hospital, members of the Young Lords and
Black Panther Party, as well as community health workers from the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement
(HRUM), together they launched a drug detox programme.
In an anxious society drugs, both legal and illegal, are what we internalise to affect our way of ‘being here’ (or
‘there’). In this performance, Bliss looks at what society considers as drugs, and how state law, foreign policy
and agencies such as the CIA, influence the definition and availability of drugs. Bliss brings together diverse
elements that trace the history of Lincoln Detox to the present day, allowing spheres of social engagement to
be exposed, disrupted and reassembled.The performance will introduce some Eastern practices already used
by the clinic to reflect on our own anxiety in the West.
THU02APR
Y NOT? @ THE ESPACIO GALLERY
PV 18:00-21:00
Exploring everything from femininity to feminine identity and women’s day, the event will focus on the female
form, gender identity, feminist issues, social and political issues and constructs, personal accounts, and perspectives.
Contributing artists, regardless of what gender they identify with, have been invited to celebrate, critique,
challenge, ridicule and reflect notions of femininity in our society and internationally.
Launched in 2012, Sweet ‘Art are a non-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of upcoming and
established artists; they will be partnering up with Lensational, a creative organisation involved in the emotional
and economic empowerment of women through the provision of photography training and equipment.
THU02APR
SBS: DIRECTING ACTION WITH LIBERATE TATE, CARLOS SALAZAR LERMONT AND
ALIZA SHVARTS @ ]PERFORMANCE SPACE[
19:00
The last instalment of the Soap Box Sessions (SBS) will take place Thursday 2nd April from 7pm! Set to be a
feisty session, with three artist/collectives who get straight to the point with their direct, uncompromising and
activist artworks.This years PAF programme set out to reawakken the political potential of our bodies; Liberate
Tate, Carlos Salazar Lermont and Aliza Shvarts are certainly doing that.
Soap Box Sessions examine contemporary performance art, what it has to say, how it is said & why. Each
session, three invited artists discuss & present their work in dialogue with each other and in relation to timely
thematics.
THU03APR
SELVES PORTRAIT IN FRESHLY SCRATCHED @ BAC
19:30 (donations)
A darkened room. A lone figure sits in front of a mirror, their reflection glowing in the glass...
This short and intimate piece combines lip sync, projection, and a slo mo soundtrack to hypnotic effect. Selves
Portrait is a solo performance/installation which places the audience inside the complex relationship between
a person and their reflection.
FRI03APR
PUSSY FAGGOT-THE SECOND COMING @ THE GLORY
17:00 (£12.50)
In their most epiphanous and epochal piece of programming yet,THE GLORY are elated to stage this one-night
mini-festival of radical and political performances, showcasing London’s finest alongside New York’s sublimest.
Curated by Earl Dax, the evening promises to be a ratchet of show-stopping gob-smacking live art that
encompasses cabaret / comedy / film / art and music. It’s an NYC QUEER PERFORMANCE HAPPENING,
man!
WED08APR
HOW TO BE A MAN BY JON COLEMAN @ OVALHOUSE
19:30 (£5)
Men are in crisis.They don’t know how to be men anymore; they don’t even know what it means to be a man
anymore. Now they are desperately trying to find the answers.
What are the core values that a man should hold dear? Is manhood a choice? How does a man hug?
In this solo performance, one man attempts to navigate the terrain of his various and often contradictory
opinions on how to be a man.
There is an apology to be made however.This show will fail, it won’t work. But that’s ok, it’s not meant to.
SAT11APR
ON A (M)OTHER’S WATCH @ GOLDSMITHS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
11:00
Please note that children are welcome at this event.
‘on a (m)other’s watch’ is a collaboration between curator Samantha Lippett and mother artist Eti Wade and
has been supported by coordinator of the Women’s Art Library, Althea Greenan.The project comprises of two
public ‘interventions’ within the Goldsmiths campus of previously unseen works by Eti Wade entitled Joscasta
and 57 Baths.The project is supported through an accompanying symposium, which is detailed below.
Drawing upon the ideas of Baraitser, Ussher and others, the ‘on a (m)other’s watch’ symposium brings into
question the censorship and re-appropriation of three maternal artists work in both the physical and online
space. These particular artists present the moments of maternal life that contradict the social construct of
the Madonna. They present the physical intimacies, immaterial labour and conflicted emotional experience
of maternal life, that have confused and at times repulsed viewers, causing the removal of these works from
the public domain.This project questions to what extent the new public visibility of home-life and the growing
hypersensitivity around the protection of children plays in the policing, censoring and corruption of subjective
maternal art.
WED08APR
DECOLONISING FILM- MAKING WITH CECILE EMEKE @ SOAS
18:00
The Decolonising Our Minds Society presents an evening of film & discussion with Jamaican-British film-maker
Cecile Emeke.We will be screening an episode of her short video series: “Strolling” - evocative interviews with
young men and women on topics ranging from colourism to afrofuturism.We will also be screening an episode
of Cecile’s web series; Ackee and Saltfish.
The screenings will be followed by a Q&A and discussion with Cecile who will be discussing the themes of
Black identity, Black feminist thought and the representation (or lack of) Black British youth on screen.
THU09APR
OPERA FOR THE UNKNOWN WOMAN-A FEMINIST DEBATE @ KINGS COLLEGE LONDON
18:30 (free but booking required)
Opera for the Unknown Woman is a new project for Melanie Wilson and Fuel. Created by Melanie Wilson
(UK) with co-composer Katarina Glowicka (PL) and projection designer Will Duke (UK), it is an epic sciencefiction dream of Earth in the 21st and 22nd centuries, seen through the eyes of its women and a visitor from
the far future.
At this event Melanie Wilson and Dr Christina Scharff (Lecturer at Department of Culture, Media and Creative
Industries at King’s College, London who recently published a report on equality and diversity in the classical
music profession) will discuss themes in the opera including science fiction and feminism. Come along to this
event and talk about the ideas for the opera and what feminist theatre might mean.
THU09APR
INFERNO VAIRETE-LECHEDEVIRGIN TRIMEGISTO IN LONDON @ THE FLYING
DUTCHMAN
20:00 (£6)
InfernoVarieté, performance in which Felipe Osornio “LechedevirgenTrimegisto” explains, from the perspective
of radical artivism and body art, the relation between violence and masculinity as a place of power relations,
where the bodies and beings that don’t fit in with the hegemonic image of “man” live a living hell, while those
who enjoy the privileges of masculinity are conditioned by the bonds of virility, bravery, strength and the fear of
being linked to the feminine, all in an environment of homophobia that subdues everyone equally.
FRI10APR
MELINDA GEBBIE: WHAT IS THE FEMALE GAZE? @ THE HORSE HOSPITAL
PV 19:00
In her first, crucial exhibition at Bloomsbury’s Horse Hospital the former Haight-Ashbury runaway,West Coast
punk affiliate and anti-nuclear animator reveals forty years of incendiary culture viewed through a unique and
finely-ground female lens. The riotous pink frontline of a generation’s sexual expression and sexual politics is
charted here in eighty drawings and seven revelatory paintings, ranging from ferocious engagements with her
predominantly male Underground contemporaries, through the account of her very English obscenity trial and
book-burning in ‘Public Enemy’, to a three-dimensional extension of her legendary pornographic masterpiece
Lost Girls, with writer Alan Moore, in the form of three exquisite bronze casts of the iconic protagonists.
In crackling documentary black and white, in a neurological rapture of colour, here is the female gaze in all its
awesome and gorgeous lucidity. Here, at last, is Underground Heaven.
Presented in collaboration with Strange Attractor.
SAT11APR
FRAMING FEMINISM: RAPUNZEL, LET DOWN YOUR HAIR + DISCUSSION @ BFI
SOUTHBANK
20:30 (£8.35-£11.75)
An extended, truly extraordinary animation sequence opens this hard-line, good-humoured work from the
London Women’s Film Group.
The film decodes the mythic story of Rapunzel, re-framing the folk tale in a variety of unlikely ways, revealing
its darker edges and exploring its role in the relationship between patriarchy and childhood. Look out for Lora
Logic from X-Ray Spex, plus Dave Swarbrick from Fairport Convention.
Joining BFI Head of Cinemas Helen de Witt for a discussion will be filmmaker Sue Clayton and others.
THU16APR
FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON SEX: FORTH SESSION @ SENATE HOUSE LIBRARY
18:30-20:00
Please join us for the next session of the Feminist Postgraduate Reading Group. Next month Verso will release
a new edition of Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (1970) and to
mark it we will be reading two chapters ‘Love’ and ‘Romance’. Plans are also brewing for an event on the 25th
of April at Queen Mary, University of London. So keep it free if you are interested and I will circulate more
information soon.
Reading available at http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/postgraduate-feminist-reading-group
https://www.facebook.com/events/1035579629804936/
THU16APR
ARTISTS TALK: MARLENE DUMAS @ TATE MODERN
18:30-20:30
In this evening lecture, artist Marlene Dumas talks about her current retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern,
The Image as Burden. The title of the exhibition is taken from her a small 1993 painting depicting one figure
carrying another. As with many of Dumas’s works, her choice of title deeply affects our interpretation of the
work.This event is related to the exhibition Marlene Dumas:The Image as Burden
FRI17APR
FRIDAY SALON: ETHICS OF THE OTHER @ ICA
15:00 (£5)
Friday Salon explores ethical questions related to working with notions of the other in art and design research
and practice. It is hosted by doctoral researchers from the Royal College of Art.
Drawing from themes emerging from ethics discussion groups held by RCA researchers, and also following
the recent Dor Guez exhibition at the ICA, the Friday Salon will explore what is at stake in making work and
research in which a notional other is implicated, whether that other is conscribed in terms of politics, geography,
history, material, the institution, ecology or indeed the other of art and design research itself.
By drawing on a range of theory on this subject from psychoanalysis, feminism, new materialism, postcolonial
and posthuman studies, as well as the writings of philosophers such as Jane Bennett , Jean-Luc Nancy, Emmanuel
Levinas, Jean-François Lyotard and Jacques Rancière, the discussion will investigate the ethical challenges facing
contemporary practice when it comes to consider the other as its subject.
Ethics of the Other precedes the opening of the RCA Research Biennial Why Would I Lie?, which is exploring
ethics and aesthetics in contemporary art and design research and practice and runs from 18–25 April with a
major conference on 18–19 April.
The form of the Friday Salon will be relatively informal. It will begin with a number of short ‘pecha kucha’ style
presentations by the RCA researchers and will be followed by questions from the audience.
Presentations will be given by Manca Bajec, Helena Bonett, Susannah Haslam, Peter Le Couteur, Carol Mancke,
Brigid McLeer, Peter Wareing and Mercedes Vincente. Dr Kristen Kreider will chair the salon.
SAT18APR
GENDER AND VOICE @ THE ROYAL CENTRE OF SPEECH AND DRAMA
09:30-16:30 (£40-£50)
The day will appeal to Voice teachers, Speech & Language Therapists, Singing teachers, Alexander teachers,
performers and all who have an interest in voice and gender.The programme and speakers will include:Voice
change for gender-variant clients: giving voice to the person within. Matthew Mills, Specialist Speech & Language
Therapist in Voice and Acting Head of Speech Therapy, Gender Identity Clinic, Charing Cross Hospital.
Working embodied vocal strategies into public conversations about gender. A workshop with Jane Boston,
Head of The International Centre for Voice and Course Leader for MA /MFA Voice Studies, Royal Central
School of Speech & Drama.
A Space to Be: Podcasts, Gender, &The Feminists Fatale with Lindsay Walker,VoiceTeacher & Christine Mottram,
Voice Teacher. A panel discussion to also include: An examination of the gay male voice: its influences and the
challenges it may present to a voice teacher with Salvatore Sorce, Voice Teacher. Reproductive Resonances:
An Exploration of the Links Between Voice and Endometriosis for Performers with Kyia Grandi,Voice Teacher.
SAT18APR
A NEW PERFORMANCE WORK BY MARTIN O’BRIEN @THE WHITE BUILDING
15:00-20:30 9(£5)
This event is part of the ongoing European project – ‘Trust me, I’m an Artist: towards an ethics of art/science
collaboration.’
‘Trust me, I’m an Artist’ is a European initiative exploring ethical issues in art that engage with biotechnology
and medicine, such as medical self-experimentation, extreme body art, and art practices using living materials
and scientific processes.
Martin O’Brien’s live art practice uses physical endurance, disgust and pain-based practices to explore the
meaning of being born with a life threatening disease (cystic fibrosis) by confronting others’ responses to illness.
SUN19APR
THE WOMEN OF BLOOMSBURY: WALK THE HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOOD OF FEMALE
FIGURES AND NOTABLE NEIGHBORS
11:00
Walk Guide: Jennifer Daley, King’s College London
Duration: about 75 minutes
The Bloomsbury neighbourhood is known as the centre of The Bloomsbury Group, a literary and artistic group
that blossomed through the 1930s.There is, however, much more to this fascinating neighbourhood, which has
been a magnet for literary and artistic leaders.This guided walk will lead you first inside the gated Mecklenburgh
Square, where the leader will discuss the historic significance of the Bloomsbury neighbourhood and its notable
neighbours, including literary icons such as Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, and Dorothy Sayers, as well as famous
female figures such as Vera Brittain, Mary Ward, Amelia Edwards, Mrs. Charles Dickens, and more.
SUN19APR
QUEER’SAY @TATE MODERN
19.00 (£8)
Presented by Out In South London in partnership with Apples and Snakes.
An evening of queer spoken word to be recorded for Resonance FM’s award winning LGBT magazine
show Out In South London. Hear three poets perform before being interviewed about their life, work and
inspirations by presenter Rosie Wilby. The poets performing at this event will be Paula Varjack, J Fergus Evans
and Hannah Chutzpah.
THU23APR
ARTIST’S TALK: WU TSANG @ ICA
18:30 (£8)
Los Angeles-based artist Wu Tsang discusses his filmmaking and performance work during his participation
in ICA exhibition Looks. His work is concerned with queer and trans community and community-practices.
THU24APR
REHANA ZAMAN@ THE SHOWROOM
18:00 (£4)
A monthly film programme. The series intends to materialise relationships between contemporary artist
moving image practice and the feminist and organising legacies present in the Cinenova collection. Cinenova
Feminist Film and Video Distributor was founded in 1991 following the merger of two feminist film and video
distributors, Circles and Cinema of Women. Each was formed in the early 1980s in response to the lack of
recognition of women in the history of the moving image. Both organisations, although initially self-organised
and unfunded, aimed to provide the means to support
the production and distribution of women’s work in this area, and played critical roles in the creation of an
independent and radical media.
Presentations will be given by Manca Bajec, Helena Bonett, Susannah Haslam, Peter Le Couteur, Carol Mancke,
Brigid McLeer, Peter Wareing and Mercedes Vincente. Dr Kristen Kreider will chair the salon.
SAT25APR
STEAKHOUSE LIVE @ RICH MIX
16:00 - 22:00
Steakhouse Live returns to Rich Mix for the third annual Steakhouse Live mini festival. Featuring Tim
Bromage, Louise Doyle, Joe Wild, Eilidh MacAskill, Marcia Farquhar & more to be announced...
WED29APR
ANTINORMATIVITY’S QUEER CONVENTIONS: A DIALOGUE WITH ROBYN WIEGMAN @
BIRBECK INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
15:00
”The tyrannies of sexual and gender normativity have been widely examined in queer theory. Heteronormativity,
homonormativity, whiteness, family values, marriage, monogamy, Christmas: all have been objects of sustained
critique, producing some of the most important work in the field in the nearly three decades of its formal
existence. Indeed, as we read it, nearly every queer theoretical itinerary of analysis that now matters is informed
by the prevailing supposition that a critique of normativity marks the spot where queer and theory meet [.]
What might queer theory do if its allegiance to antinormativity was rendered less secure?”
So begins the forthcoming issue of the journal differences, “Queer Theory without Antinormativity”, edited by
Robyn Wiegman and Elizabeth Wilson.
In this seminar Robyn Wiegman will address this question, drawing on her joint contribution to the volume, and
informed by her recent book, “Object Lessons” (Duke University Press, 2012). Responses will be offered by
Noreen Giffney, Daniel Monk, Sasha Roseneil and Lynne Segal.
STILL SHOWING
TILL SAT04APR
TIFKAS: HANNAH QUINLAN ANDERSON & ROSIE HASTINGS @ ARCADIA MISSA
For Tifkas, Rosie Hastings and Hannah Quinlan Anderson present work that re-materialises the idea of the gay bar as a politically queer space. Tifkas
envisages a fantasy gay bar through reimagining queer iconography, history and writing that spans geological, political and temporal locations.
TILL SAT04APR
RAINBOW MERCHANT @ SCHWARTZ GALLERY
Rainbow Merchant invites artists to submit work that considers ideas of self-organisation, utopia and the real versus the imagined; contemporary art as
a space for optimised thinking and envisioning. Rainbow Merchant encompasses the self as we know it as well as the phantom of our future selves in a
world of decipherment, reflection and possibility.
TILL SUN05APR
STRANGE ATTRACTION EXHIBITION @ A.P.T GALLERY
Dear A, I’m attracted to you, and I don’t know why. Shall we be friends?
Vanessa Mitter, Lana Locke, Eleanor Moreton, Andrew Mania, Lady Lucy, Hannah Campion. Curated by Emily Purser
TILL SAT11APR
BARBARA KRUGER: EARLY WORKS @SKARSTEDT GALLERY
The exhibition features Kruger’s large-scale black and white photographs, overlaid with provocative captions in bold Futura type.This group of works,
selected from the 1980s, examines the cultural constructions of power, identity and sexuality through their
juxtaposition of text and imagery.
TILL SUN12APR
PATRICK STAFF: THE FOUNDATION @ CHISENHALE GALLERY
The Foundation is a major film installation exploring queer intergenerational relationships
negotiated through historical materials.The film combines footage shot at the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles – home to the archive of the
erotic artist and gay icon and a community of people that care for it – with choreographic sequences shot within a specially constructed set.
TILL SUN12APR
WHERE WE ARE NOW: PSYCHOANALYTIC RESEARCH IN THE 21ST CENTURY @ FREUD MUSEUM
This new exhibition explores how psychoanalytic ideas are currently used in research which engages with very contemporary issues and the challenges
of the modern world. The pieces are by six young artists from the Slade School of Fine Art, who have been commissioned to produce work that
contests misconceptions and clichés about psychoanalytic research, and emphasises the discipline’s relevance to twenty-first century life.
TILL SAT25APR
STAGING THE SCREEN: FATMA BUCAK - RÄ DI MARTINO @ THE RYDER PROJECTS
This exhibition presents a video each from two artists, Fatma Bucak and Rä di Martino, drawing together a dialogue around theatricality, audience and
medium. Exhibited as a sort of ‘call and response’ each work will be given the entire gallery space for three weeks.
TILL SUN26APR
WOMEN FASHION POWER @ DESIGN MUSEUM
From Elizabeth I to Margaret Thatcher, Coco Chanel to Lady Gaga, the clothes women wear have always been a powerful form of self-expression and
part of a sophisticated visual language.
TILL SAT25APR
LENA HENKE AND MARIE KARLBERG @ VILMA GOLD
Artists Lena Henke and Marie Karlberg at Vilma Gold.The new and newer bodies of work shown by Marie Karlberg and Lena Henke at Vilma Gold are
provocatively ‘feminine’. Less on display, though, is their recourse to a determined, hypostasized anger. I’m not sure the duo would say so themselves; after
all, are girls – is anyone – allowed to admit to anger anymore? And would such an anti-productive disclosure preclude activity?
TILL SUN10MAY
SELF: IMAGE AND IDENTITY @ TURNER CONTEMPORARY
In a world where ‘selfies’ have become everyday expressions and ‘Britishness’ is being redefined, what is the role of self-portraiture and how has it shifted
through the history of art to the present day? Historical and contemporary artists sit side by side, including Sir Anthony van Dyck, Mary Beale, Louise
Bourgeois, John Constable, Tracey Emin, Jason Evans, Lucian Freud, Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Angelica Kauffmann, Sarah Lucas,
Gillian Wearing,Yinka Shonibare MBE, JMW Turner and Andy Warhol.
TILL SAT16MAY
ISA GENZKEN ‘GELDBILDER’ @ HAUSER & WIRTH
In a new series of paintings unveiled at Hauser & Wirth London, Genzken employs motifs from the language of capitalism to explore themes of selfand social-examination. Since the 1970s, Genzken’s diverse practice has encompassed sculpture, photography, found-object installation, drawing and
painting. Her work borrows from the aesthetics of Minimalism, punk culture and assemblage art to confront the conditions of human experience in
contemporary society and the uneasy social climate of capitalism. Although her approach varies greatly, Genzken has maintained a striking common
thread and internal truth to both her vision and her works of art themselves.
TILL SUN17MAY
COLUMBIDAE @ CELL PROJECT SPACE
Columbidae takes the form of administrative work historically associated with the office as a starting point and includes the work of artists who have
traced the various impacts of this labor on the body, the mind and the home. From awkward elevator rides to water cooler conversations, from heavy
photocopiers to featherlight laptops, the artists included point to moments of aspiration and depression in the collapses of work into life.
TILL SUN17MAY
YDESSA HENDELES: FROM HER WOODEN SLEEP… @ ICA
In “From her wooden sleep…”, Hendeles draws together disparate elements to compose a tightly choreographed tableau vivant. Continuing her daring
explorations of psychologically charged cultural artefacts, Hendeles has staged this show to give visitors an unexpectedly intimate encounter with the
work’s many suggestive elements.
TILL FRI22MAY
HELENA ALMEIDA: INHABITED PAINTINGS / PINTURAS HABITADAS @ RICHARD SALTOUN GALLERY
This is the first London show dedicated to Helena Almeida, one of the leading women artists working in Europe during the ‘70s and ‘80s.The exhibition
presents a selection of works from some of her most iconic series from the period.
TILL TUE23JUN
CINENOVA | SHOWING A MONTHLY FILM PROGRAMME @ THE SHOWROOM
For more information check the website.
TILL SUN02AUG
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN: SAVAGE BEAUTY
Celebrating the extraordinary creative talent of one of the most innovative designers of recent times, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty will be the
first and largest retrospective of McQueen’s work to be presented in Europe.