susan pui san lok
One/Hundred, 2019. Ribbons and rope Unearthing ancient histories, susan pui san lok explores ideas of history, myth, collective witnessing and resistance. susan pui san lok explores the persecution of ‘witches’ and refuses to let them be forgotten. She commemorates the unnamed women accused of being ‘witches’ in East Anglia between 1560-1751 with a red ribbon […]
Freddie Robins
‘Cecil,’ 2014, ‘Alice,’ 2016 and ‘Griselda’ 2016. Wool, lace, stone and wood Freddie Robins uses knitting to explore contemporary issues of the domestic, gender and the human condition. Playfully subverting meaning and making, her work disrupts notions of knitting as passive and benign. Freddie doesn’t have to look far for her research, with nearby Wivenhoe bringing […]
Chiara Fumai
‘W.A.R.N.I.N.G.’ 2015. Photography and pen Chiara Fumai’s practice interrogates radical feminism, media culture and repression through performance and works that explore psychic abilities, anti-spectacle strategies and counterculture icons. She creates a portal to marginalised women, who despite gaining recognition through vociferous dissent have since been overlooked. Chiara belongs to a tradition of female psychics serving […]
Leonora Carrington
‘Major Arcana’ Tarot, c. 1955. Chromolithography reproduction. Leonora Carrington was a British-born surrealist painter who lived and worked in Mexico. Biblical stories, Irish fairy tales and Aztec culture alchemically blend to equip her with a unique way of approaching the world around her. Leonora Carrington also asks us to rethink our relationship with feminism through her personally […]
Alice Bucknell
‘The Martian Word for World is Mother’, 2021. Film Working primarily through game engines and speculative fiction, Alice Bucknell explores interconnections between ecology, magic and non-human and machine intelligence. Alice Bucknell uses the idiom of magic as a vehicle to engage with the legacy of colonialism, racial injustice and to empower the de-voiced. As she tells writer […]
Serena Korda
Jug Choir (5 from the series), 2016. Glazed ceramic Serena Korda’s practice spans sculpture, performance and installation – and has ‘world building’ at its core. She reviews historic and mythic narratives through a female lens, reworking them to create her own highly inventive mythologies. Her sculptures predominately adopt the notoriously unforgiving medium of clay, embracing […]
Akinsola Lawanson
Bosode, 2021. Film Akinsola Lawanson is a British-Nigerian artist working with moving image, video game engines and motorised sculptures. Their practice examines relational systems, colonialism, digital technologies and process philosophy. ‘Bosode’opens up new worlds which critique the legacy of colonialism by taking us on a journey into the Yoruba spirit world. Taking inspiration from Nollywood, […]
Juno Calypso
‘Seaweed Wrap’, 2015. Photograph ‘A Dream in Green’, 2015, Film Juno Calypso works with photography, film and installation, creating a female universe of solitude, desire and despair. Working alone, Calypso comments on the construction of femininity. Through her work, Juno creates a universe of solitude, desire and despair – all with an about-to-crack edge. In […]
Tai Shani
‘Astrolatrous Communes III’, 2022. Bas relief, MDF, Jesmonite, flock, paint ‘Unresurrectable Biologies – Un-undead 1 + 2,’ 2022. Epoxy, glass, 3D prints, mohair, sheepskin, electrics Tai Shani’s practice encompasses performance, film and installation. Taking inspiration from forgotten histories, she explores capitalism, patriarchy and feminism as she creates dark, fantastical worlds brimming with Utopian potential. In […]
Accra, 1966
In 1957 under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence from colonial power, as the wave of liberation movements successfully swept across the continent. Later, in 1965 the white ruling class of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) declared their freedom from Britain. Ghana criticized the UK for allowing the […]
Addis Ababa, 1991
Mengistu Haile Mariam was the leader of Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991 and chairman of the military junta that governed the country until his overthrow. During that time, Mengistu pursued an autocratic politics that led to thousands of Ethiopians being killed. The statue of Vladimir Lenin in Addis Ababa was an important government monument representing […]
San Cristobal de las Casas
The statue of Diego de Mazariegos was toppled on the Christopher Columbus quincentennial, on 12 October 1992. He has been awarded monumental status for his pivotal role in the colonisation of the Chiapas region of Mexico. According to Thomas Benjamin (Professor of Latin American History at Central Michigan University), “One marcher knocked the statue off […]
Durham
The Confederate Soldiers Monument (“The Boys Who Wore Gray”) was a memorial to the soldiers from Durham County who fought for the Confederate States in the American Civil War. The monument was erected in 1924 – nearly sixty years after the end of the Civil War – in front of the Old Durham County Courthouse […]
Madrid, 1936
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) iconoclastic activity directed at churches, monasteries and Catholic monuments spread throughout the country. The ‘execution’ of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by militia at Cerro de Los Ángeles near Madrid was the most infamous of widespread destruction of religious property. Built in 1919, it was inaugurated by King Alfonso […]
Tehran, 1979
Reza Shah Pahlavi ruled Iran until the British removed him in 1941, leading to the democratic election of President Mohammad Mossadegh in 1951. However, after he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company two years later, Mossadegh was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup. Mohammad Reza, the son of the previous leader Reza Shah Pahlavi, was then installed […]