music & liberation: call for volunteer expressions of interest

From my inbox, from Deborah Withers...

Dear all,

I am currently putting together a funding bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund to make a touring exhibition called Music & Liberation. My aim is for the exhibition to tour the UK June-Oct 2012. It will draw on and gather new material for the Women's Liberation Music Archive http://womensliberationmusicarchive.wordpress.com that was launched in May 2011. A short synopsis of the exhibition is below.

As part of the project I want to involve up to 6 volunteers from across the UK to help research content for the exhibition, the archive and for a CD that will include music from the exhibition, photographs and extensive sleeve notes. These volunteers will be supported mainly online, although there will be opportunities to meet in person throughout the course of the project.

Research duties will include things like visiting archives where volunteers live, interviewing musicians who live in your local area, writing biographies (that will become sleeve notes for the CD) and, of course, listening to rare feminist music.

Gaining evidence of volunteer interest in the project is vital for attaining funds from the HLF. If you think you would be interested in volunteering on the project next year in any way (no matter how big or small!) please get in touch. debiwithers@yahoo.co.uk / 07940 320 113

Also, if you work for a UK-based museum or arts centre that may be interested in hosting the exhibition similarly please get in touch for more details as there are spaces to fill in the schedule.

Thanks in advance and please share widely!
Deborah Withers

Music and Liberation: Women’s Liberation Music-Making in the UK, 1970-1989 tells the story of how feminists used music as an activist tool to entertain and empower women during the 1970s and 1980s. It brings together for the first time a diverse collection of women’s cultural heritage to inspire and inform contemporary audiences about the politics of feminist music making.

The exhibition will draw on material from the Women’s Liberation Music Archive (http://womensliberationmusicarchive.wordpress.com), an online blog archive launched in May 2011 by archive co-ordinators Frankie Green and Dr Deborah Withers. It will also present new oral and audio-visual histories collected especially for the exhibition. Music and Liberation is a unique opportunity to hear the music and watch the performances of some of the most interesting, innovative and provocative music you have never heard of.