Scan to listen:
We Lived Our Lives Under These Laws, and We Didn't Know!
Scan to listen:
We are the Section 28 Generation
I’m Trying to Find the Others: Section 28 and All My Workings Out
Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths, The Rutherford Building, SE14 6NW
29th September - 7th November 2025
Mon-Fri 1-4pm
Evening Exhibition Opening (free booking)
Friday Oct 31st
6-7.30pm
I came to the Women’s Art Library looking for material on the Section 28 laws, and artworks made around the time of my birth (1989) that may have a relationship to these laws.
(See boxes: ‘Women Cartoonists’, ‘Lesbian Artists’ amongst others. Ask for the artist file for Mumtaz Karimjee, particularly a work made in 1988, and the 1990 Goldsmiths Ba Fine Art degree show catalogue for an entry by Hamad Butt.)
This exhibition contains my workings out, new artworks, and material from the archives that expanded my existing understanding. It presents the ‘inside’ of a performance practice; when working solo and in dialogue. Drawings, diagrams, sculptures and costumes emerge out of, and feed back into performances. As a performer in the work, many aspects of the process meet my experience, highlight what it feels like to process information and to have a lived experience connected to the context of the work.
The performance produced over the period in residence is titled 'Gen S28: Press Up/ Fold In’. The work traverses different registers: homage x show and tell x chant x a very specific art history lecture. Books and artworks are companions; chants are written to ‘find the others’.
Support and thanks
The performance evolved with access to the Women’s Art Library. It was presented at: ‘Unbecoming Chorus: reading, writing, and performance in two acts (with interruption)’, curated by the Feminist Duration Reading Group at Goldsmiths CCA, London in partnership with Deptford X Festival in July 2025 and at Supernormal Festival at Braziers Park in August 2025 on the invitation of organisers of the former Braziers International Artist Workshop.
Thank you to Althea Greenan and Hannah Stageman at Women’s Art Library for your support. Many thanks to Beth Bramich and Helena Reckitt and the ‘Auto’ group of Feminist Duration Reading Group for inviting me to be part of ‘Unbecoming Chorus’. Thank you to Max Mason and Gill Old for your support presenting work at Supernormal Festival. Thank you to friends who have generously put me up, and to my peers for the constructive conversations: Jessica Jane Charleston, Jonny Helm, Bella Milroy, Adam Gillam, Louise Howlett, Fay Nicolson, Heni Hale, Ceri Bythesea, Jessa Mockridge, Marie Smith, Nikki Tomlinson, Sarah Howe, Sarah Kaye, Nick Toner and to community members of Braziers Park. Thank you Simon Stanley for supporting me with developing skills on the piano.
Images:
Poster image and background: Research process in residence at Women’s Art Library. Artworks pictured: inkjet print of a photograph I took of a slide of ‘In Search of an Image’ (cropped reproduction) (1988) by Mumtaz Karimjee. Books pictured: Outrageous!: The Story Of Section 28 And Britain’s Battle For LGBT Education by Paul Baker and Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism by Lauren Fournier. Image courtesy of the artist.
Below: Diagram in homage/a network of influences, made whilst in residence at Women’s Art Library, London, 2024-25.