At Tate Liverpool this late summer there was an exhibition of Maria Lassnig and her life’s work (1919-2014). Rare to find a female artist who had survived into late age and had produced art works that had early been recognised and encouraged. Frida Kahlo for example lived much of her life in the shadow of…
Originally posted on First Draft:
Poet Rebecca Audra Smith looks at the theme of ‘retrospect‘ in this poem and guest blog. You can catch her performing at our In Retrospect cabaret night at The Castle Hotel on Monday 16 February. I wrote ‘Time will not’ for fun – it’s a formal take from Edwin Morgan’s poem ‘I…
Content warning for discussion of rape statistics and barriers to women’s safety, this post will look at cuts to services such as refuges for women living with domestic violence. On Wednesday 10th December 2014 we gathered to protest in St Peter’s Square about the need to stop the cuts, in particular the cuts to women’s…
BringBackOurGirls #BBOGManchester This was a recap I wrote shortly after the second protest: The first vigil was on Tuesday 6th May, a day after President Jonathon had spoken out about the situation in Nigeria; over two hundred girls had been taken from their schools, kidnapped as goods in a war against ‘sinful’ Western education. It…
This post will be discussing the racist reaction to Quvenzhané Wallis as Annie and Idris Elba potentially as Bond, referencing Azealia Bank’s amazing rant and Ben Okri’s article. I’ve been getting annoyed with the amount of people I’ve seen saying that Rush Limbaugh has a point that Idris Elba can’t be Bond because Bond is white…
'Whatever you do not fight against is done in your name' Great Activist talking at #thequeerforum — Rebecca Audra Smith (@BeccaAudra) December 7, 2014 This year have been getting more involved in protesting, and there has been so much to protest about. What does going to protests, signing petitions, actually achieve? People sometimes try to…
Originally posted on ArtiPeeps:
The Nine Realms 9 months, 22 poets and writers, 22 Artists, 3 composers, 1 Viking boat: a magical reworking of Norse Mythology for contemporary audiences ? Poems and Writing inspired by the Norse realm of Asgard Featuring: Jim C. Mackintosh, Rebecca Audra Smith, Kate Garrett and Nat Hall ? Vanaheim by…
WOMB FURY- ‘A term of historic interest for the presence (or absence) of the hymen in a woman, which was once regarded as a symptom of physical disease that, if not cured, might result in death.’ Being a woman=dangerous. Sarah Grace Logan and myself create joint poems that aim to explore this, how women are marked…
I was very excited to discover the articles on Feminist Media Studies, with titles like: ”Your a Ugly, Whorish, Slut”: Understanding E-bile. (Mis)Perceptions Around Intimate Partner Violence in the Music Video and Lyrics for “Love the Way You Lie” It was brilliant to see these issues addressed in researched articles that built up a body…
“If we all helped carry the weight of injustice, we could not bear it, and so we would finally stop tolerating what we’ve been content to force others to carry alone.”- Emma Sulkowicz Coming together through craftivism to discuss what we want changed with the representation of women was a really powerful experience. Putting the discussion into…
Hello all, This Saturday 13th it’s Wollstonecraftivism! 12-3. Defo try and come for 12 because after we’ve kicked off there will be breaks and a relaxed workshop, but at 12 there will be the most context. But it’d be great to see you at 1pm/2pm as well if you can’t make it that early! This…
Originally posted on First Draft:
Greetings, #FirstDraftFridays followers! This week we’re sharing some poetry from Rebecca Audra Smith and Anna Percy, who have been working and writing together for a long time, and are the brains behind Manchester-based poetry group, Stirred Poetry. They performed a brilliant set at our 2nd birthday event, Two’s Company, sharing some…
Today as part of Quimperfect Tense’s season of workshops I came up with some ways of responding to the MMU degree show, you can download the prompts here: Allways Ekphrasis Workshop The first artwork we responded to was a cascading fall of black paper chains, we later switched our two line responses and free wrote from…
NoMorePage3Mcr ran the first event today, Back in Time, at Manchester Art Gallery. We looked at Joana Vasconcelos and her artworks Big Booby #2 and Bond Girl, and explored what they meant to us in the context of society’s rhetoric partly symbolised by Page 3 and its placement in a popular high profile newspaper,…
Hey everyone in the world, I’ve had a few different ideas to get my head around lately so that’s been interesting seeing what will happen next. I wanted to share a short Frida Kahlo inspired poem which is somewhat experimental (for me) although I can’t show the line breaks at the minute (I’ve run out…
beccaaudra 