YES BODIES

A Workshop for Humber Street Gallery, Hull: 2019: Film Documentation by Scout Stuart

Back in August 2019, I was invited to create a workshop in response to Jade Montserrat's Exhibition 'Instituting Care' at Humber Street Gallery. Using my recent work TUCH I created an environment in which a group of local women could share experiences of EPIC touch and create bodily sound and movements in and around Jade's installation to explore their memory and body. 

'Instituting Care' by Jade Montserrat:Large-scale charcoal drawings made directly on the walls of the gallery. The drawings offer fragmented reflections of the artists experience navigating her way through education, working as an artist and living in the UK. Amongst the drawings sits a structure that will be host to a series of events relating to care and education. The drawings are comprised of quotations and responses to key texts on decolonisation and decolonising knowledge by writers such as Frantz Fanon, Audre Lorde and Stuart Hall.

Instituting Care was developed in 2018 whilst Montserrat worked as the artist in residence at Bluecoat, Liverpool’s Centre for the Contemporary Arts. Whilst in residence, Montserrat met local artists, educators and activists in Liverpool, some of whom will be facilitating related events during the exhibition. 

This workshop brought to my attention how important it is to actively and regularly monitor the diversity of attendance at your events via the organisation. I feel the need to comment on a lack of diversity of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people in this space. We can do more for our artists + audiences. See this article here for more info: https://www.roundhouse.org.uk/blog/2019/10/is-commissioning-work-by-black-artists-enough-to-make-black-audiences-feel-welcome-in-predominantly-white-theatre-spaces/

Text from Humber Street Gallery + Bluecoat Gallery.

Find out more about Jade Montserrat here :  jademontserrat.com

Thank you to all the Women involved for sharing their stories.