Troublemakers #1
at The Empty Shop, 35c
Framwellgate Bridge Durham City, DH1 4SJ
Friday 15 March,
6pm – 9pm
Free entry
(Image of Bikini Kill
by Lucy Thane)
Panel discussion Producing
DIY Feminist Cultural Activisms: The role of zines, art & music.
Kate
Wadkins, Melanie Maddison & Julia Downes
This panel will
discuss DIY feminist cultural production as a vital, albeit marginalised, arena
of feminist activisms.
Kate will discuss
the role of zines as both an indispensable tool for sustainable
community-building and empowerment, as well as a form of democratic art, in
various New York City subcultures. Zines have functioned as provocative
political and artistic tools for centuries. Essential to communication in the
riot grrrl movement of the 1990s (as well as numerous political movements
before it), zines continue to play a crucial role in communications between
activists and artists today.
Melanie will discuss
the role, importance, and act of creative sociopolitical history projects in
relation to her collaborative radical art project ‘Shape & Situate: Posters
of Inspirational European Women’ that will also be on show. Melanie will also
explore further other examples of art that engages with the politics of memory
and socio-political history, in the context of the importance of us
documenting, analysing, and publishing our own cultural and community
histories.
EDIT/PROVISO: Melanie -- I'm not an academic; my inarticulation will make this very apparent when you see me on a 'panel' for my first time! I am however super passionate about cultural activism, despite my non-academic credentials - I hope that shines through my tongue-tied ness and lack of fancy language!!
Julia will discuss
how DIY music offers a distinctive set of strategies with which participants
can construct subversive genders, sexualities and feminisms. Using examples
from riot grrrl and queer feminist music cultures DIY music is theorised as
part of an enduring historical continuation of radical world-making carried out
by diverse groups including non-white, working-class, feminine and
non-heterosexual (or queer) subject positions.
Live music
Onsind is an acoustic pop-punk band from Pity Me, Durham made up of Nathan and
Daniel. They have been playing shows together since 2007, developing a
peculiarly North Eastern brand of energetic, melodic, acoustic pop-music
coupled with uncompromisingly political lyrics. Onsind have releases on
legendary US DIY punk label Plan-it-X Records (Andrew Jackson Jihad, Heathers,
Antsy Pants), as well as Durham's very own Discount Horse records (The Middle
Ones, Ace Bushy Striptease, Colour Me Wednesday). Recommended If You Like:
Against Me! The Beautiful South, RVIVR.
http://onsind.bandcamp.com
Andrew Lips is a queer song-writer who has been releasing
albums endlessly since 2006. Blending together auto-biographical tales from
sexuality, travelling, home life to sexual assault and body issues while
delivering them in a catchy up-beat fashion. Not a political singer, just a
nerd trying to work through their personal hang ups in life. Andrew has
self-released several of hir albums and also worked with Plan-It-X Records.
People who enjoy making out, having big crushes and crying into their pillows
will like this. Fans of Your Heart Breaks and Kimya Dawson will dig this too. http://andrewlips.bandcamp.com
Zines & Books
Pop-up zine library,
bookstall & distro by BRAIN WAVES, The People’s Bookshop, Newcastle Nerd
Punx & The Canny Little Library (tbc) http://brainwaveszines.tumblr.com
http://peoplesbookshop.co.uk http://newcastlenerdpunx.com
Exhibition of
Shape & Situate: Posters of Inspirational European Women
Shape & Situate
is a zine of posters made by artists and DIY creative folk from within Europe,
each poster highlighting the (often hidden) history and lives of radical
inspirational women and collectives from Europe, as a way of connecting us with
the past and the present through a dynamic cultural (re-)articulation of these
women’s lives. The zine aims to activate feminist cultural memory, to inspire
in the present, and to visually bring women’s social and political history to
life and into view. http://remember-who-you-are.blogspot.co.uk
Further
information about the Troublemakers event
This is a launch
event for Troublemakers: Queer//Feminist Academic-Activists in Cultural Theory
& Activism. A new network for activists, academics, researchers, queers,
feminists and misfits to change the way we write, tell, and make histories from
zines, to academia, to the culture at large.
This event has been made
free and accessible to the public with support from the Centre for Sex, Gender
and Sexualities and St. Aidans College at Durham University. www.dur.ac.uk/csgs
www.dur.ac.uk/st-aidans.college
The Empty Shop is a non-profit arts organisation in
the North East of England and based in Durham City. Since 2008 The Empty Shop
provides a much needed and accessible platform for artists of all levels and
backgrounds to produce exhibit and engage with art. http://emptyshop.org
About the panel speakers
Kate Wadkins is a
Brooklyn-based writer and artist. Of late, she is working in social media,
assisting on "The Punk Singer," a documentary about Kathleen Hanna,
and thinking about creative ways to approach Hurricane Sandy Relief. She writes
about feminist cultural production, primarily in punk scenes. In December, Kate
published "Freakin' Out: Remaking Masculinity through Punk Rock in
Detroit," an article in "Punk Anteriors," a special double issue
of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory. Ever a zine
enthusiast, she curates BRAIN WAVES: a zine and print collection, and co-edited
International Girl Gang Underground, a compilation zine about reverberations of
the riot grrrl movement in the wake of its legacy. Kate is a founding member of
For the Birds Collective as well as a classic virgo, coffee enthusiast, bass
player, and rabble rouser.
Melanie Maddison (Leeds, UK)
collates the zine, ‘Shape & Situate: Posters Of Inspirational European
Women’ (4 issues, 2010-2012). Melanie has also produced/created the zines
‘Colouring Outside the Lines’ - a zine featuring interviews with contemporary
female artists, 'Taking Cultural Production Into Our Own Hands', 'Reassess Your
Weapons', 'With Arms Outstretched', 'UK Ladyfest Artwork Zine', and 'I'm Not
Waiting: Doing It Yrself Now', as well as writing for Pikaland and Aorta
magazine (USA). She has curated and been involved with many zine-related art
exhibitions including ones at The Women’s Library, London; Gallery II,
Bradford; Space Station 65, London; Ladyfest Leeds; Victoria Baths, Manchester;
and The New Museum, New York. She is also a regular contributor to various
UK-based zine fairs and events. Melanie is currently working on a zine project,
‘Remembering Who We Are’, alongside Lindsay Starbuck. The project is looking at
individual’s personal histories to see how we come to be the people that we
are, with the politics that we have. It looks at social and political history
on a personal level; things that individuals have experienced in their lifetime
that have influenced and activated them, or formative events that have made
people think about the world in a different way – collating stepping stones for
inspiration and encouragement. The project aims to challenge the myth of the
‘perfect’ activist who comes to their work fully actualised; and aims to
remember some of where we've come from in order to show how our unique
experiences have led us to work to create change in the ways that we do.
Julia Downes is a Research
Associate in the School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University where
she is currently working on a project on domestic violence. Julia's writing and
research has also focused on riot grrrl, queer feminist communities, cultural
activism and all-girl bands. She has lectured on popular music and society,
feminist cultural activism and queer girl cultures at the University of Leeds,
University of Derby, University of Birmingham and Durham University. Julia has
been active in DIY queer feminist cultural activism for over 10 years within
Manifesta, Ladyfest Leeds, Ladies Rock UK, Star and Shadow Cinema and even
clean hands cause damage and as a drummer in the bands The Holy Terror, Fake
Tan, Vile Vile Creatures and the Physicists.
