Using YouTube, I discovered a recorded PhD presentation of Trubowitz's research on the development of archiving sources of information and the history of the local prison records, which could have easily been destroyed or lost. Documenting the recorded history of the Textile Workers Strike in 1912 and their arrests, deaths and injuries amongst it.

I wanted to include two different approaches that document the strike: Dr. Forrant's approach as a lecturer gives a more rounded cultural, sociological, economical, and historical point of view and humanised the issues of migration, the workers, and included statistics of their difficult living conditions (death rate, wage rates) whilst delving more into the context behind why the workers went on strike.

why am I interested in this?

PV is Feb 28th from 4-8pm at 01902 Gallery, WV1 1TQ. I plan to attend to network with other artists.

In the UK 'until the 1990's many women weren't allowed to join company pension schemes' which is just ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING to me! This has evolved to affect many women born in the 1950's who are unable to get their pension due to the retirement age continuing to rise, leaving them in need of work so to live but unable to find work due to poor health etc. The retirement age is now 66.

WASPI utilised Freedom Of Information acts to find out the facts about the situation.

For example "Recommendations to give fair notice were ignored"

"Women of a similar age have to wait disproportionately longer for their pension – a ONE year difference in birthday can make an almost THREE year difference to state pension age."

"Letters were sent out to women born on or after 6 April 1951 – 5 April 1953 14 years after the 1995 Pensions Act"

• Women were given as little as one year’s notice of up to a 6 year increase to their State Pension Age, compared to men who received 6 years’ notice of a one year rise to their State Pension Age.

• Many women report receiving NO letter EVER

"February 2012, when Pussy Riot staged Punk Prayer – a musical protest at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in which they appealed to the Holy Virgin to "chase Putin out" – a two-year jail sentence for a 40-second peaceful protest"

"The five young women in balaclavas chose a location sure to draw attention"

"They expected controversy – as protest artists, they sought it – but they did not expect to go to jail

"Dreaming only of sleep and a sip of tea, the exhausted, harassed and dirty convict becomes obedient putty in the hands of the administration, which sees us solely as a free work force. So, in June 2013, my monthly wages came to 29 rubles [50p] – 29 rubles!"

"Sanitary conditions at the prison are calculated to make the prisoner feel like a disempowered, filthy animal...This room can accommodate five people, but all 800 prisoners are sent there to wash up...There is always a stampede in the 'general hygiene room' as women with little tubs try and wash their 'breadwinners' (as they are called in Mordovia) as fast as they can, clambering on top of each other"

Punk Prayer had been designed and performed very much in the Moscow Conceptualist mould: it was a brilliant prank of an artwork, and no one had planned to go to prison over it."

"Pussy Riot was an open-membership collective in which every participant performed anonymously. "Being Pussy Riot is like being Batman," one participant told me. "You put on the mask – and you become Pussy Riot. You take it off – and you are no longer Pussy Riot." The mask, in this case, was a balaclava. It could be any colour as long as it was bright and one wore tights to not match it."

"They immediately announced that they would be launching a movement to fight for the rights of Russian prisoners, showing that they were not only ready to face Russia's new political reality – they were already swinging at it. In the month since, they have been collecting documentation on human rights abuses in prisons, organising court cases and letter-writing campaigns, and travelling to co-ordinate individual efforts; they have not paused for a minute."

rough sketch thinking of the working title "same old shit"

I always look to 'SAMO', a tag or moniker created by Jean-Michel Basquiat before his big rise from graffiti artist to exhibiting artist in high end galleries.

I wanted to go for a medieval typeface to relate back to well, the middle ages or more commonly referred to as the dark ages...the an old medieval page in a book or a banner or flag which I

"Becoming British" I found this poster advertised online on Instagram for a 6 hour Endurance Performance.

What do non-british people who emmigrte here think about our culture?

"they produce slogans which divide opinion as they occupy a variety of public spaces from posters and billboards to football pitches, bus stops and the body."

"rooted in dialogue they attempt to form community through agreement and disagreement."

"Pussy Riot are essentially conceptual artists. This is what makes them threatening—it is not possible to imprison a concept."

"an image event, a term Kevin Michael DeLuca coined to describe media events staged by activists that challenge dominant enthymemes (prevalent frameworks for understanding existing power relations)."

One of the arrested protesters, Rebecca Schiller, said of the mask; “The mask is a form of free speech … I can show solidarity with [Pussy Riot].”

"The balaclava signals that the protesters could be any body due to the anonymity furnished by the mask."

“..."direct action protests, non-violent civil disobedience, and critique performed through spectacle [as] acceptable forms of political participation”, which are carried out by subaltern groups. Image events can generate a sense of desire for direct action and trigger “imagination” by creating a new distribution of the sensible, new scenes of possibility."

"The iconography of Pussy Riot is infectious and easy to appropriate because it works in the way that resistance works in a post-ideological age where art moves faster than organisation and repressive regimes can be shaken by irreverent protest memes, bright colours and bravery.

"And, of course, it's a girl thing. Every sexist society, including this one, fosters an image of women as basically interchangeable. Underneath the makeup, girls are all the same, aren't we, with the same petty problems and weak, willing bodies. Pussy Riot takes the image of modern womanhood as a faceless smile, repeated endlessly, and turns it back on us as a scream." - Laurie Penny.

"Despite Pussy Riot's incarceration, their icon—the balaclava—has taken on a life of its own. It has appeared in solidarity protests and art projects around the globe. The call for spectators to become spect-actors is evident in the recirculation and restaging of the balaclava in solidarity protests around the world."

“easily recognizable, easily replicated” images."

Music in the background really helped students to engage...funny that!?

I've never worked with college students before, so it was definitely an experience trying to balance acting like an adult, with being a person and also an authority? (unsure how I feel about that!)

It was almost laughable! I attended only because I wanted to see artists interpretation of the topic was like. I'm unsure if I was supposed to find it find it funny though?

the beans was so viscerally repulsive !!

I enjoyed the artist painting the union flag blind, I thought that was really affective as a performance art piece as it felt like it was conceptual whilst also having a bit of play within it. The cups of tea made it varying shades felt very british.

I asked for feedback and advice when creating a performance suit, and ways to push my textile pieces further and brought my "Living The Dream" Flag piece as a prop for the crit session by other artists which include: Dinosaur Kilby, Alex Billingham, Tammy Woodrow and more.

"Stitched words onto fabric loosely sewn on for people to tear off"

"It's a British critique of the old yuppie stereotype, How could you match other critiques and phrases?"

"Perhaps words or letters could be sewn onto your suit?"

"It's okay not to stay the same in your practice!"

When reflecting on this I feel like I need multiple suits for different purposes. Or creating different patches to be applied and removed to make the suit unique every time?

A Pop-Up Performance night @ SOA, with the large banner shown belonging to and produced by Dinosaur Kilby. Essentially launched as an Open Call; artists, people, poets and performers applied and performed over the space of an hour. It fell flat to me, ranging from someone handing out a QR code to some questionable content, someone stacking square frames and small squares inside, to a poem. The performances I most liked which held the most substance or elicited emotions were by Dinosaur Kilby and Chelsea Mildenhall who plays Belle. Kilby, walks behind the banner and placed earphones over his head and begins to play a song to which he sings along, the spaces, pauses and beginnings between the lyrics were laughable and awkward. The awkwardness and second-hand embarrassment was an interesting space to be in.

I have a working artist relationship with Dino and have shared ideas about the collaborate pop-up project A.P.E that I co-run with Tammy, short for Alternative Performance Evets. Why it is why we do this event, that it is an Open Call, and because we want to make performance art more fun and engaging with the Public. While I can't exactly comment on being copied, it did feel similar to what I do at A.P.E....

I was able to show an experimental piece that came from a photography slide and film cut up / collage workshop

I also was interested in the [permanent] applications of vinyl (perhaps?) along the corridors but in particular found myself drawn to the shape of the balaclava and its simplicity

Whilst I am really humbled to have my work imitated. It's nice to know my artwork has inspired a recreation BUT I feel, all too often, that this is a story that far too many women artists know all too well.

I took my clothes off to reveal a body suit on underneath.

I reached for any word on my body frantically trying to make sentences about me and us as women.

the words didn't work, they did , then they didn't. I was nervous. It came across as powerful. I was just claiming it back

CUNT.

NOT MY WORK. However, I really enjoyed this playful interruption at the SOA of combining a classically inspired sculpture with a party hat.

Who doesn't love a sense of humour or some silliness in art!

Public Kiosk 2016, Social Kiosk (engage) 2016 and Citizen Ship 2017 are the portable pop-up sculptures / social space venues that I felt really inspired by

portability = affordability

badges, balloons, posters are such an approachable and accessible way of getting the public to engage with your practice or investigation

DIY structure is an aesthetic that aligns with my personal morals/principles.

describes anti-hierarchy and a non hierarchical way of community engagement. artist and general public as equals, it feels like it's bringing the arts "back down to earth" which I really like and try to uphold as an ethos in my practice.

THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL

How can art and activism come together AND engage with the public?

I'm interested in how a structure can become a social, out there in the world, on the ground public engagement and 'experiment' to gather information, and generally just to create space for the public to take it. For it to then transition and become placed into a gallery space suddenly they become "sculptural objects".

I'm always drawn to the marks that people leave on walls "THIS GIG GOT ME OVER MY SEXUAL ASSAULT", was written in a public restroom, a private place used by all, to confess or write their woes, worries, achievements, frustrations and wisdom on the walls. It's the most honest and earnest form of public engagement.

"NEIGHBOURHOOD CO-ORDINATOR" pasted on the floor, I really liked this terminology, at eastside projects. What an interesting way to describe yourself, an artist, I think we need more neighbourhood co-ordinators!

Old Medieval English typeface used.

I wanted to experiment with creating another flag in contast to living the dream, we're living the "Same Old Shit"

This became a really lengthy process of testing which fabric backing was best and playing with the stitching so it would fit within the outline and leave no gaps.

Water Soluble backing is the BEST crease free option

Positioning and aligning the loop, measuring along the flag so it would be spaced equally was a whole process in and of itself

I learned through this workshop that lithography was used as a printing process for old cigarette packets and whisky labels !

I wanted to update that craft and experiment to illustrate a lost mary disposable vape (equally as bad for you and the planet) to nod to one of the many uses of this printing process.

I got the words backwards :(