Spring Summer 2010 Listings at the Women’s Library
Spring Summer 2010 Listings at the Women’s Library
Events
Lesbian Love/Hate Letters
Wednesday 24 February , 7pm (90 mins)
£8 / £6 concessions
Do lesbians have a special relationship to letters, a writing practice that Virginia Woolf described as ‘the humane art that owes its origin to the love of friends’? Come and share your thoughts on letters and letter relationships at an evening with Margaretta Jolly, whose book In Love and
Struggle: Letters in Contemporary Feminism explores the history of women’s correspondence since 1970.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S WEEK
Study Day : Heart of the Race: Black Feminism in Britain
Saturday 6 March, 10am – 5pm
Free
This day provides an overview of the rise of black British feminism in the 1970s. It will draw on the Black Cultural Archives’ recent oral history project, which collected testimonies from the women involved in OWAAD (Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent) and other Black women’s groups. Heart of the Race considers the significance of the movement, and reflects on how grassroots Black and Asian women’s movement became important to an emerging black British feminist consciousness.
(Please note – this event was postponed from 14 November 2009). This event will be taking place at the London Metropolitan Archives. 40 Northampton Road, Clerkenwell, London, EC1R 0HB
Wisewords Book Fest
Friday 12 and Saturday 13 March,
2pm – 10pm
£12 for one day, £20 for two days.
Individual talks before 5pm: £4 / £3 concessions; Individual talks after 5pm: £6 / £5 concessions.
Two days of thrilling, thoughtful, radical and humorous writing by women authors with their latest publications. Includes Dreda Say Mitchell on crime, Cathi Unsworth on thrillers, Shazia Mirza on comedy, Maggie Gee, Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Tamsin Bradley, Emma Tomalin and Mangala Subramaniam with their book ‘Dowry’ an indepth exploration of this practice, ‘Cracking On’ an anthology of poems by older women, ‘Bollywood Weddings’ by Kavita Ramdya, ‘The Woman Who Saved The Children’ by Clare Mulley and the launch of ‘The Equality Illusion’ by Kat Barnard, Campaigns Officer of the Fawcett Society.
In collaboration with Alternative Arts
Wonderful Women of Whitechapel and Spitalfields
Saturday 13 March, (120 mins), £10
Discover women’s history on the move, with Blue Badge Guide Rachel Kolsky
Advance booking is essential. Visit sites associated with women who have defined Whitechapel and Spitalfields, from Eva Luckes and Edith Cavell at the London Hospital, to politics with Annie Besant, philanthropy with Mary Hughes and Miriam Moses and the modern creativity of Monica Ali and Tracey Emin.
Self-Publishing and Liberation
Saturday 20 March, 10am to 3.30pm
£10 / £8 concessions
Practical workshop about self-publishing, with a particular focus on Print-on-Demand technology. The workshop will feature historical testimony from Gail Chester and Amanda Sebestyen, who will speak about their involvement with publishing collectives in the Women’s Liberation Movement. You can participate in creative exercises that will arm you with the inspiration and tools to start publishing your own material.
Teenage Motherhood: Policy problem or feminist cause?
Thursday 15 April, 7pm (90 mins)
Free
As the Government’s ten-year strategy comes to a close, public debate on teenage pregnancy looks set to continue. This event brings together policy experts, campaigners and feminist scholars to consider: is teenage pregnancy a problem, or is young women’s right to choose motherhood a present-day feminist cause?
Exhibitions
Ms Understood: Women’s liberation in 1970s Britain
Until 17 April 2010
Free
Marches, mums, magazines and radical knitting; Ms Understood uses film, personal testimonies, photography and original documents to give visitors an insight in to how the women’s movement was born and how its legacy has shaped the way we live today.
Striking Women: Voices of South Asian workers from Grunwick and Gate Gourmet
Until 31 March 2009
Admission: Free
Striking Women celebrates the significant role played by South Asian women in two industrial disputes in Greater London – the strike at Grunwick between 1976 and 1978 and the dispute at Gate Gourmet that erupted in 2005.
Out of the Archives
Opens 12 May
Free
Out of the Archives is The Women’s Library’s first group exhibition showcasing contemporary artists’ works. Working across a range of media artists Helen Cammock, Marysia Lewandowska, Olivia Plender & Hester Reeve, Eileen Simpson & Ben White have been commissioned to create work in response to the Library’s collections. Their research has led them to topics as varied as Commonwealth Migration, English folk music and the suffragettes’ relationship to art making.
All events and exhibitions, unless otherwise stated will be held at
The Women’s Library, 25 Old Castle Street, London, E1 7NT.
For further details visit http://www.thewomenslibrary.ac.uk