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Hi
***Sorry for x-posting***
Please can you circulate information about a free event happening in Durham on your mailing list? It may be of interest to the public, students, activists, researchers, academics and other misfits. I have attached a poster and further
information.
Thank you
Julia
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Troublemakers #1
Friday 15 March, 6pm – 9pm
The Empty Shop, 35c Framwellgate Bridge, Durham City, DH1 4SJ
Free entry
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.
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.
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 & more
http://brainwaveszines.tumblr.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/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.
Facebook event page
www.facebook.com/events/338847342899286
________________________
Dr Julia Downes
Research Associate
School of Applied Social Sciences
Elvet Riverside 2
Durham University
DH1 3JT
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (0)191 3341480
Twitter: @juliahdownes
Skype: julia.downes
Web: http://durham.academia.edu/JuliaDownes
New book: Women Make Noise: Girl bands from Motown to Modern
Available now from Supernova books http://www.supernovabooks.co.uk/womenmakenoise.html
More info on book events: http://www.facebook.com/WomenMakeNoise