Woman Up!

This is our last Woman Up! On Tour episode for 2023. We would like to take this opportunity to send a massive thanks to all organizations that worked with us this year and all the amazing artists that shared their work with us, reminding us of what's possible to create and achieve even when challenged. Thanks to Jess Gell for her amazing video skills and acegrams for making it all possible. And lastly THANK YOU! Thank you to all our incredible listeners, you've been an amazing support and we appreciate you all for taking the time to hear us out! We wish you all a peaceful and happy transition into the new year - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - In this episode we talk to wonderful artist Rosy Martin. Rosy Martin (born London 1946) is an artist-photographer, psychological-therapist, workshop leader, lecturer and writer. She explores the relationships between photography, memory, identities and unconscious processes using self-portraiture, still life photography and video. Starting in 1983, working with the late Jo Spence, she evolved and developed a new photographic practice- phototherapy - incorporating re-enactments. Through embodiment, they explored the psychic and social construction of identities within the drama of the everyday. My ‘therapeutic gaze’ provided a safe space for exploring one’s own stories in profoundly innovative ways. Exhibiting Internationally and publishing widely since 1985, she has investigated issues including gender, sexualities, ageing, class, location, shame and family dynamics. Her photographic practice is grounded in research, the subjects arise from personal lived experiences, yet communicate to a broad audience. For example in ‘Transforming the suit: what does a lesbian look like?’ 1987 she played with different historical and contemporary stereotypes to challenge simplistic assumptions. She used still life and video in ‘Too close to home?’ to explore the experiences of pre-bereavement, loss, grief and reparation by focusing upon her childhood home as a metaphor/metonym for both her father and mother, anticipating and mourning their deaths. She researched working-class suburban life inspired by this semi-detached house, almost unchanged since the 1930s. In ‘The end of the line’ she photographed through tears a soft and melancholy goodbye to her roots. On turning fifty, her focus became contesting the dominant representations of ageing women, a subject she has returned to in her seventies. Using humour, play and parody the ageing body is reconfigured as present, joyous and defiant. Martin has run intensive experiential phototherapy workshops and given lectures in Universities and Galleries throughout Britain, the USA, Canada, Eire and Finland. She also ran workshops in community settings, including a women's prison, projects with survivors of sexual abuse and school-based projects on digital identities.

In this episode we are in Margate at Liminal Gallery talking to founder and curator Louise Fitzjohn and Margate based artists Mercedes Workmen and Catherine Chinatree. Liminal Gallery represents contemporary artists working across the UK and Ireland. Its main ethos is to present an all-round snapshot of what is happening right now in contemporary art, showcasing artists at all stages of their careers working across all mediums. Mercedes is a self-taught artist; predominantly working in ceramics but also other areas of sculpture, painting and drawing. After her mum died in January 2020 she decided to make some tiles for a splash back in her kitchen and it grew to be huge project; she created enough tiles for 3 bathrooms, a utility room and her whole kitchen. Her work is a response to her overactive mind. She has ADHD and work fast and determinedly. Themes that recur in her work are relationships and interactions, perceptions, judgements, idiosyncrasies, cliches. Most usually around womanhood, motherhood and identity Catherine is a multidisciplinary artist, with a strong focus on large scale paintings, both indoors and outside. The work can be described as both figurative and socially surreal. She also work with sound and moving image in a collage type of way, connecting footage/sound at random. Most of her inspiration comes from the events of everyday life, of symbolism and rituals and the people she meets. Often complex layers of history, social anthropology and Cultural displacement become part of the work, as she investigate the notion of the constructed self and human behaviour. Being of Welsh, Caribbean and Irish descent, She is deeply rooted in hybrid culture, and the idea of a shared reality. Not only between us as humans, but also everything that makes up our natural/supernatural world, and how we balance between the two.

In this episode we are at Friction Arts in Birmingham talking to Sandra Hall Artistic Director and co-founder of Friction Arts (alongside Lee Griffiths) and artists Natalie Mason and Savhanha Small Wyn. For 30 years, Friction has produced an ambitious programme of creative work, often in partnership or collaboration with artists from all kinds of disciplines; currently it includes Birmingham’s only free visual art club for young people delivered by professional artists, a ground-breaking multicultural music programme in schools and community settings, our Culture Club for young people, A Word From the Wise – a programme celebrating the work of elders and older artists, currently through our ‘Home’ project, Walking Over Coals, with an artist development programme for emerging, emerged and submerging artists and an ever-evolving series of site-specific performances and interventions in a variety of settings like their between-lockdown show ‘Quiet Carnival’. Natalie Mason is a performer-composer, facilitator and researcher.Natalie has been directing the Multicultural Music Making project (MMM) she created in partnership with Friction Arts. As a multi-instrumentalist, Natalie has performed and recorded internationally at the BBC Proms, FIFA World Cup, Symphony Hall and Real World Studios. She has been commissioned as a composer by Surge Orchestra, Flatpack Film Festival and Dorcha, with her music played on BBC Radio 3. She is a member of avant-pop experimental duo Kamura Obscura, co-curates alternative music night Club Integral Midlands Branch and recently completed a national tour with The Nightingales. Savhanha Small Wyn, a poet, writer and mum to two under two of Vietnamese-Jamaican-British heritage. Savhanha is a poet and writer and has been published in the Visual Verse with my poem 'Pieces', and have since had three more published on their site ('A Knight's Tale', 'Firewatch', and 'Spring'), along with a piece published on Spare Parts Lit and another on Halu Halo Journal, and two more pieces to be published during 2023. Since having her children Savhanha has realised the difficulties of freelancing and childcare which inspired her to launch an Arts zine online called RECESSES, a multi-media zine that focuses on work that's been rejected, forgotten, or is new and experimental.

In this Woman Up! On Tour episode we went to Brighton and spent time at the incredible Quiet Down There studio talking to thee inspiring women Lucy Jeffries, AFLO.the poet and Alina Hazadeh. . Quiet Down There offers people routes to expressing and developing their own creativity – outside of the traditional structures of the arts. They work in markets, charity shops, laundrettes and other spaces where people already are. They are ambitious for the communities that they collaborate with and work alongside artists to hone and develop their socially engaged practice. . AFLO. the poet is an award-winning Brighton-based spoken word artist, activist and academic who embraces creative expression to disrupt the status quo and inspire social change. AFLO. uses poetry as a vehicle to address hard-hitting topics, particularly racism and mental health, primarily speaking from her lived experiences. AFLO. has performed at various protests, festivals and events. AFLO. is one of Brighton Dome's in-house artists for 23/24 and is a significant force directing change in Brighton's creative scenes. . Lucy is an intersectional feminist, mum, producer, law student & cocktail drinker. She grew up in Bristol where she formed her community-organising roots and have lived in Brighton for the last 20 years. She co-founded Quiet Down There in 2016. . Alinah is an artist, writer, performer and cultural activist of British Iranian heritage. She uses text, textile, audio, and live practices to create poetic narratives that activate spaces, amplifying untold or overlooked stories. She is inaugural writer-in-residence at Seven Sisters Country Park & Sussex Heritage Coast, commissioned by the South Downs National Park Authority, and led We See You Now (2019–22), a decolonial landscape and literature programme which has produced We Hear You Now, a new spoken word audio series on Listening Points across the landscape and online until 2028.

In this episode recorded at Artlink in Hull we spoke to Jemma Brown, Sam Metz and Lydia Shearsmith. . Jemma is a creative producer and a specialist working with diverse communities to plan and produce current, relevant, and inclusive artwork to engage and enlighten. She holds a First Class BA Honours in Contemporary Fine Art Practice, is an Arts and Graphics Teacher (QTLS status), and Freelance Artist. . Sam is an artist who researches, creates and reflects on the concept of what they refer to as choreographic objects. Sam has collaborated with the performance artist David Clarkson to create body-based live art, and has been a member of Guerrilla Art Lab, a queer, feminist, live art, performance collective since 2016. . Lydia is an artist who is primarily concerned with exploring photography as a medium and as a subject matter. Her varied processes allow her to expand image-making into physical space, challenging common definitions of photography. . Artlink is an arts and educational charity working with under-represented people to improve prospects and deliver positive social impacts. They do this through participatory arts projects, exhibitions, events, and learning programmes - working with a range of communities. Since 1982, Artlink Hull has been involved in the development of community, participatory and socially-engaged work.

Sangini is a Black and minorities women led community arts project that is committed to ending gender based violence. They seek to improve the quality of Black and minoritised and socially excluded women's lives by increasing their physical, mental and spiritual health through artistic, heritage, crafts and social activities that helps women recover from experiences of gender based violence whilst promoting cultural diversity. Sangini seek to reach BME, disadvantaged and excluded women in innovative and creative ways whilst providing opportunities for tackling inequalities. Their previous projects have had a positive impact in encouraging women from different communities to engage in educational, creative and participatory activities by providing support and encouragement thereby removing the social and cultural barriers. https://www.sangini.co.uk/about Padma Rao, Director, Sangini is based in the North East of England, is also a contemporary visual artist practicing painting and contemporary drawing, a visiting lecturer, arts facilitator and a published poet. Padma has over 20 years’ experience in the arts, heritage, community development, equalities and women’s issues. Padma has an art studio Makaan in South Shields, UK where she has shown works of art by artists based locally, nationally and internationally. A published poet, Padma has a background of working in the radio both at the BBC Radio Newcastle, as well as in India. In her role at Sangini, Padma leads on the strategic development of Sangini’s programme of work that includes developing partnerships and sustainability and representation of Black women’s voices at local, regional and national networks. Padma is passionate about the role and status of marginalised women in our current society and by exploring these issues through her work, both as an artist as well as in her role at Sangini, she aims to create a platform for the wider discussions around creativity, equality, feminism, identity and displacement of Black women. Nasim Akhtar is an artist living near Durham. She loves the textures of different fabrics and make textile art and patchwork quilts. She's been sewing since she was very young. She uses watercolours and acrylics to make abstract images as well as using digital manipulation to finish a piece of art. Her art work is displayed at EDAN Art Gallery in Seaham. Art ran alongside a 30 year career in Probation Services, in particular working to develop on services for women who commit crime. Writing poems and short stories helped her to record reflections and events. She has a manuscript inspired by her father’s journey to the UK which shaped his family, including her. Nasim is also a member of Easignton Writers and a local book club.

New episode of Woman Up! On Tour! . Recorded at the Newbridge project I. Newcastle we spoke with disabled artist and drag king, incredible Lasy Kitt . Kitt works on long term, collaborative projects driven by insatiable curiosity about how art can be useful. Projects are usually punctuated by the creation of large-scale, vibrant installations / sites for exchange made from recycled paper, reused plastics and raw clay, which Kitt calls shrines. . Kitt uses crafting, performance, joy and research to create objects, interactions and events, with the wild ambition of dismantling and mischievously re-crafting spaces and systems they find discriminatory, obsolete or just quite dull. . Kitt is a trustee for Crafts Council and founding member of disabled artist led art rabble “kin collective” (North East Culture Awards “Newcomer of the Year” winner 2022). . Kitt’s work has been longlisted for the 2023 Aesthetica Art Prize, shown at Atlanta Contemporary (USA), Saatchi Gallery (UK), National Centre on Restorative Justice (USA) and commissioned by Craftspace (“Drag Declares Emergency” 2022-23), Arts&Heritage (“This, our hive of voices” 2020-22) and BALTIC (‘Open. Bloom. Flourish. Nourish’, 2021). . Kitt is currently working with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art (UK), AXISWEB (UK) and Centre for Artistic Activism (USA) on “(en)SHRINE”, an ACE and AHRC funded project exploring collaborative making as a catalyst for organizational development. . Thank you @acegrams for making all this possible!

In this episode we went to Rogue Artists Studios in Manchester and spoke to ecxeptional artists Laura Yuile and Anna FC Smith . Laura’s multidisciplinary practice explores the entanglements between domestic and urban space through matters of community, sustainability, and obsolescence, and the effects of globalisation and technological development. She exhibits internationally and alongside gallery-based exhibitions and events, she has organised a number of projects that filter into the everyday, commercial spaces that her work is engaged with. These have included Comfort Zones - a series of symposia on the subject of comfort zones held in the showrooms of various IKEA stores through the UK and China and a bus tour to a landfill site for Global Shadow Local Mist (2014). ASSET ARREST is an ongoing project and podcast series that addresses issues of financialized housing and real estate and their impact upon communities. . Anna explores social history, folk culture and ritual through historical and anthropological research. Creating sculpture, installation, performance, and group actions her works emerge as multi-dimensional symbolic collages spanning eras, and forms of material culture. Touching on politics and performative space, she examines power and community, juxtaposing the ‘low culture’ and irreverence of communal tradition with the pageantry and ceremony of governance. Seeking links contemporary society has to its predecessors, she sees history and ritual as means to interpret the present.

Woman up! On Tour - Manchester Art Gallery New Episode Alert! 🎧 We're thrilled to bring you an extraordinary peek into the art world of Manchester! 🗣️ Join us on this captivating podcast episode as we sit down with the remarkable senior curator Natasha Howes and sensational artists, Susie MacMurray and Mary Griffiths! 🗣️ Get ready to be immersed in their artistic journeys, creative visions, and the stories behind their awe-inspiring work. From the curator's curation process to the artists' inspirations, this episode is a treasure trove of art insights! . Natasha Howes is the senior curator of Manchester Art Gallery. Mary Griffiths’ practice begins with drawing and the close observation of urban, rural and industrial ecologies and architectures. These rapid figurative drawings are developed in the studio in graphite, ink, monoprints, paint and digital media. Her works are held in public and private collections including Arts Council Collection, The Turnpike and The Whitworth. One of her work (Weather) is currently showing at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. An engagement with materials and with the body is at the heart of MacMurray’s practice. Her role is one of an alchemist: combining material, form and context in deceptively simple ways to stimulate both physical and cultural associations within those who encounter her work. Working in installation and sculpture she has gained a reputation for poetic site-specific interventions in historic spaces. Susie has an international exhibition profile, showing regularly in the USA and Europe as well as the UK.

For our first ‘physical' On Tour episode we travelled to the Phoenix in Exeter to meet the amazing Lizzy Humber producer, artist, mother and co artistic director of the amazing Mothers Who Make movement. At the table with us we invited two artists who have been supported and empowered by the project, Amy Adkin and Dr. Kate Massey-Chase. We also hosted live performances by spoken word artists Laura Free and Micha Colombo. Mothers Who Make is a growing international movement for women and non binary people who care about creating, and create whilst caring. Through a range of peer support meetings, artistic events and innovative projects they aim to support women and non-binary people to sustain their creative identities whilst also holding caring roles. For more information https://motherswhomake.org/exeter

In this episode we talk to artist and founder of A.M.M.A.A (The Archive for Mapping Mother Artists in Asia) Ruchika Wason Singh along two other wonderful artists Alka Mathur and Aparajita Jain Mahajan . A.M.M.A.A. simply means mother. It is also a space, for mapping mother artists in Asia and their art practice. A.M.M.A.A. is an initiative by Indian artist Ruchika Wason Singh, to document the different aspects of their art making and its possible relations with motherhood . https://www.ammaathearchive.com/about Alka Mathur https://www.instagram.com/alka_mathur_art/ https://alkamathur.com Aparajita Jain Mahajan https://www.instagram.com/aparajita_atot/ https://www.aparajitajainmahajan.com

Spilt Milk Gallery CIC is a social enterprise based in Edinburgh whose mission is to support the work of artists who identify as mothers, and to empower mothers in our community through artist-led activities. They support and advocate for artists mothers through an international membership network, an online and pop-up exhibitions programme, peer support, mentoring and professional development opportunities. They support mothers and families in the local community through creative workshops and family friendly events. (The term ‘mother’ is used inclusively to represent women, non-binary parents and trans women with life-long caring responsibilities.) Lauren McLaughlin graduated with BA (Hons) Fine Art from Central Saint Martins in 2012, and MA Applied Arts & Social Practice from Queen Margaret University Edinburgh in 2021. Lauren’s work has been exhibited throughout the UK and Europe including at the Royal Scottish Academy Edinburgh, The Whitworth Manchester, Lights of Soho London and Palazzo Albrizi Venice. Her work is held in permanent public collections and she has been published in a number of books and journals including An Artist and A Mother (Demeter Press), OVER Journal (Photo Ireland), Milked Mag, and Wordpower: Language as Medium (Library X). Lauren’s practice has been publicly funded by Creative Scotland, King’s College Cultural Institute, The Hope Scott Trust and most recently, Magnetic North Theatre’s Seed Fund. Lauren is also the founding director of Spilt Milk Gallery CIC. http://www.laurenmclaughlin.co.uk Michelle Gallagher is a multidisciplinary artist, who’s practice encompasses sculpture, printing and drawing. She completed her diploma in sculpture from Limerick school of art in Ireland. After gaining her Art & Design teaching qualifications, she followed her dream of going to Africa, and travelled to Botswana in 1997 to work as an art educator and artist. Traveling and working in Africa was inspiring, and it was in Botswana that she was involved in her first exhibitions. Michelle returned to Ireland in 2000 and finished the final year of her BA in fine art sculpture, from Limerick. Michelle has worked as an artist and educator, firstly in Ireland and Botswana, then Eastern Europe and Asia before settling in Germany. Her work has been exhibited Internationally. She is a member of the Scottish based Spilt Milk Gallery, and has had the opportunity to be part of the curatorial team for some of their recent exhibitions. Michelle joined the BBK Kunstforum Düsseldorf in 2021 and is currently working within the board curating and helping organize the community. http://www.michellegallagher.online

Pauline de Souza is the founder and director of Diversity Art Forum. She is a writer and is Senior Lecturer in the Visual Arts Cluster, Fine Art Department at the University of East London, She, is the programmer for Cultural Manoeuvres at the University of East London and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Pauline is involved in the Beacon Collective and sits on the TATE British Artists Network Steering Group. She has written for Feminist Visual Culture, Women Artists and Modernism, Leap into Action, for Third Text, Studio International and other publications.

Syowia Kyambi is an interdisciplinary artist and curator whose media spans across photography, video, drawing, sound, sculpture and performance installation. She holds an MFA from Transart Institute (2020) and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2002). Syowia is based in Nairobi and of Kenyan/German origin. In Kyambi’s artistic practice history collapses into the contemporary through the interventions of mischievous and disruptive interlocutory agents who interrogate the legacy of hurt inflicted by colonial projects that still frame the wider political conjuncture of now. The work is messy, complex and uneasy requiring its viewers and participants to bear witness to an embodiment of collective experiences, and a constant search for links between the now and the morphed now that is encapsulated in her work while asking important questions about what is remembered, what is archived, and how we see the world anew. She is one of the 4 members of the “What the hELL she doin!” collective. The members are all female-identifying artists from across the African continent and its Diasporas. Common to their respective practices are touchstones, which include but are not limited to: the body and what gets embodied, remembering and dismembering, standing and leaving, invisible creolization, and labor as geography.

Louise Ashcroft is an artist who makes video, performance, audio, watercolours and objects which humorously chronicle her critical meddling in real life situations. Often, her work involves analysing cultural content (like the Argos catalogue, call centres, tech culture, the reproductive industry or breakfast cereal marketing). She has made several audio works for BBC Sounds and has spoken at leading digital arts festivals such as KIKK and Chaos Computer Congress. She has presented work at Frans Hals Museum (NL), Museum of London Lates, Wellcome Lates, BQ Berlin, Arebyte, Bobinska Brownlee, Tate Learning, Open Space Contemporary, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Artsadmin, Turf Projects, Duckie, Coastal Currents Festival, Camden People's Theatre, Supernormal Festival and Latitude Festival. She teaches Fine Art at Goldsmiths, London, and co-founded the free peer-led art school AltMFA in 2010. She likes expensive trainers and angry Marxist rhetoric. Louise says "My work looks at barriers to starting a family as a queer woman, and the personal relationships that are in play in these decisions. We need to be rethinking social structures of parenting, not always going down the ‘nuclear’ style family and gender binary structures. I didn't want to be a parent or non parent in a relationship, I just want to be involved in a family! How can someone parent without being a traditional ‘having a baby’ parent? Childfree by choice is a movement focused on choice, which can be problematic. Choice is a very loaded word, but is also a word that capitalism is based on. Having kids or not is not always a choice for people. Like for me, but then that means you can explore different ways to be ‘family’, which can be equally exciting." Useful links https://www.louiseashcroft.org/bird-hut.html Insta @louiseashcroft1

Guests: - Oleksandra Kushchenko (Sasha), born in 1988 in Kharkiv, moved to Lviv in 2009. Art critic, art historian, and author of a series of lectures "(Her)story of Art" (2019) and "(Her)story of Photography" (2020) organized together with the Feminist Workshop (Lviv). Ph.D. student at the Lviv National Academy of Arts. Lecturer of the course "Visual Culture" at the Ukrainian Catholic University. Since 2014, the founder and editor of the project "ArtLvivOnline". https://www.instagram.com/sasha_kushchenko/ https://www.instagram.com/artlvivonline/ - Anita Nemeth, born in Khmelnytsky in 1993. Artist, curator and art historian. She studied at the Kamyanets-Podilsky National University named after Ivan Ogienko, majoring in "Restoration of works of art" (2010-2014) and at the Lviv National Academy of Arts, majoring in "History and Theory of Art" (2010-2016). Since 2019 he has lived in Lviv and worked at the Mykhailo Dzyndra Museum of Modern Sculpture. During this time she has implemented several art projects in Lviv as a curator: Pink Exhibition (2019) , Sculpture Symposium 0.1 in the Park of Culture (2020). https://instagram.com/nemetal.enterprincess?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= https://instagram.com/diogenes_gallery?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= They also have a fresh publication about calm feminism https://blokmagazine.com/silence-feminin-zine-part-iii-nobody-talks-about-this/ This episode was produced in partnership with Procreate Project

In this month's Woman Up! we speak to one of Britain's leading art writers Hettie Judah. . Hettie is currently working on a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition and on a book on art and motherhood. . In this episode, Hettie talks to us about both her current work on issues surrounding artists with children, and her personal experience of combining her professional career, and parenting responsibilities. . 'There were artists who’d received awards for women artists that felt like they had to ‘come out’ as mothers…which is a ridiculous situation to be in. Or who were having residencies given to them and that they had to say ‘Well, I have 2 kids I can’t go away for 3 months… either I have to take my kids or I have to split this up and do it in different ways.......... Nobody is there to pick up and help these people… they’re just expected to fit around the needs of the gallery when actually it really costs the gallery or the institution nothing to say ‘well, can we shift this for a week? Could we shift this for a year? Would this event be easier for you if we did it at 11 am instead of 6 pm?’ You know, there are all these structures that we have established in the artworld and we expect everyone to just fit around them when there are really small changes that could be made to make things a lot easier for artist parents. It just takes a little bit of thought and to ask the right questions and for people to feel empowered to declare themselves openly.' . Her most recent and upcoming books include Lapidarium (John Murray/ Penguin, 2022), How Not to Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents) (Lund Humphries, 2022), Frida Kahlo (Laurence King, 2020) and Art London (ACC Art Books, 2019). This episode was produced in partnership with Procreate Project

Dr Frances Hatherley is a writer, researcher and curator. Her writing provokes critical engagements with working-class women’s subjectivities, creativities, art works, and notions of a classed-aesthetics. In 2018 she was awarded her PhD from Middlesex University titled “Sublime Dissension: A Working-Class Anti-Pygmalion Aesthetics of the Female Grotesque” examining the intersections of class and gender in the formations of grotesque, and sublime femininities in art and visual culture. She has published writing on surrealism and the subversive female grotesques of Leonora Carrington’s book The Hearing Trumpet and in David and Al Measles’ film Grey Gardens, and on working-class sexualities and fat femininities in characters from the comic Viz, as well as challenging stereotypes of working-class aesthetics in the photography of Richard Billingham. Other articles discuss class, sexuality, education in film and television. In 2020 She published her first book on Jo Spence, with a foreword by Marina Warner, titled Class Slippers: Jo Spence, Fantasy, Photography & Fairytales. Frances has been involved in curating several exhibitions in the UK, the first at the Pelz Gallery working with Patrizia di Bello and a group of MA students, with a show titled “Cultural Sniping: Photographic Collaborations in the Jo Spence Memorial Library” in Spring 2018. She co-curated the exhibition “Jo Spence: From Fairytales to Phototherapy” at the Arnolfini, Bristol, December 2020 – June 2021. Before Christmas, she was involved in curating the expanded film project “The Hurrier: Poor on the Roll” with Anne Robinson showing at galleries APT and Five Years, taking up topics of women, work, sexuality, and time travel. And she’s currently working on her second book exploring her conception of the Anti-Pygmalion in representations of women in art and popular culture with a focus on the practices of working-class cultural workers in Britain. This episode was produced in partnership with Procreate Project

In Woman Up! Series 4 episode 2 we talked to Sasha Kanster, external affairs manager and educational projects manager for the Feminist Workshop organisation based in Lviv, Ukraine. . Sasha says ' I think a lot of people will find there is no space for art, they will need to do more practical things and feel pressure about it …. But some people also understand that art is the only way that we can deal with trauma at a collective level. I don't think we can go as a whole country to therapy! But art will allow us to work through this experience.' . For more info about their work during the war and to donate please visit: https://femwork.org/warinukraine/ This episode was produced in partnership with Procreate Project

In this first episode of our re-launch we interviewed Annya Sand co-founder of the WAAW London a new initiative aiming to create more representation for female artists inviting London Art's galleries and non-commercial art institutions to exclusively showcase women artists during the week of the 8th to 15th of June. 'What I try to do is to find a sustainable solution to the lack of representation of female artists... If a gallery says no to us we don’t let them off the hook so easily, and I believe we have right to do so. We would ask them to exhibit female artists at another time in the year and perhaps host a talk to highlight and talk about the important of representation of female artists. We offer our platform to advertise this potential initiative throughout the year so that galleries feel encouraged to make their programme more inclusive…. By improving the situation for female artists we are ultimately improving the generation that is being brought up by them, and in turn our societies mental state and outlook of what’s fair and what's not' - Annya Sand This episode was produced in partnership with Procreate Project.