On Beauty exhibition: Photographic portraits of staff and students at Cass Faculty of Art. Photograph: Sue Andrews
Not to be outdone by International Women’s Day, women artists, writers, performers and community groups in Tower Hamlets are putting on a range of events and exhibitions to celebrate Women’s History Month.
Talks, art exhibitions, performances, films and comedy will be taking place throughout the month. At East London Idea Stores, the history of women in war will be the focus of a series of events. Photographer Jenny Matthews will be showing her work on the effects of war on women from across the world, there will be a talk on the suffragettes, as well as a screening about British nurse Edith Cavell.
Other free film screenings include Going Through the Change!, the London premiere of a film made for the National Women Against Pit Closures at the Bishopsgate Institute. There’s also Looking for Light: Jane Bown, a moving portrait of the photographer Jane Bown, at the Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design, as well as an archive screening of Granny’s Girls, a 1960s documentary about the lives of women from a close-knit Bethnal Green family, showing at Tower Hamlets Local History Library.
Art exhibitions to mark Women’s History Month include the Museum of Water by Amy Sharrocks at Chisenhale Dance Space and MMMother at the Darnley Gallery, and over at Rich Mix there’s a full programme of performance featuring a Kathak interpretation of Federico García Lorca’s play Yerma, and contemporary dance from the Hagit Yaker Dance Company.
From the archives: Centerprise on Kingsland Road. Photograph: Maggie Hewitt
An oral history project has been launched to remember a much loved Hackney institution and symbol of the borough’s radical past.
A Hackney Autobiography: Remembering Centerprise will record the history of Centerprise, a bookshop and cultural centre that from 1971 until 2012 facilitated ground-breaking work in oral history, literacy, history, story writing and more.
Oral history organisation On the Record has received a Heritage Lottery grant for the project, and is looking for volunteers as well as people who remember Centerprise, which was located on Kingsland Road.
By July 2016 organisers hope to have published a book on the history of Centerprise and have launched a map-based app so people can discover the stories published by Centerprise on their phones whilst they walk around Hackney.
Rosa Vilbr, co-director of On the Record, says: “Centerprise was one of the first community publishers in the country and it was an idea that took off and spread all around the country after that.
“It was a vibrant place that involved people in the community and gave people access not only to experience culture but also a means to produce it.”
A Hackney Autobiography will focus on the community publishing, writing and literacy works carried out by Centerprise during the 1970s and 1980s, led by author Ken Worpole, then a teacher at Hackney Downs School.
Work published by Centerprise included creative writing by local children, poetry and books about Hackney’s past. The project will bring back into prominence some of these works, such as a book on Dr Jelley, an eccentric medical practitioner from Homerton who dispensed medicine and advice cheaply to the poor and boasted of being able to treat 100 patients in an hour.
Worpole believes the speed at which Hackney is changing makes the project an urgent one, saying that we live in a culture “which is often blind to the struggles and achievements of earlier generations in shaping their own lives”.
Vilbr adds: “There’s a lot of culture – new culture – in Hackney, and it often feels like it’s coming from the outside rather than being generated from within. What the history of Centerprise shows is that there’s always been artists and writers and poets amongst the general constituency of people that live in Hackney.”
On the Record is hosting a free gathering at the Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, EC2M 4QH on Saturday 24 January for people who remember Centerprise. To RSVP and for further information emailinfo@on-the-record.org.uk
Doris the heckler at Speakers’ Corner 1968. Photograph: Chris Kennett
Do you believe in the freedom to speak your mind in front of other people? Sounds From The Park (SFTP), currently at the Bishopsgate Institute, focuses on one small part of London where the principle of freedom of speech is held as sacrosanct: Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, a haven for left-wingers, right-wingers, Communists, weirdos, eccentrics, trade unionists, radical thinkers, religious fundamentalists, and all manner of in-between.
More than just an exhibition, SFTP mixes photos and field recordings together to weave a beguiling and inspiring feel capturing those gathered at the podium. A number of black-and-white photos show a range of characters heckling the gathered crowds, from the 1970s right up to the present; one shows an intense debate between a Palestinian and a Jewish man. Meanwhile, an accompanying audio guide contains twenty-nine interviews with speakers, who recount their interest in taking the podiums, along with actual samples of the speakers in action.
SFTP is culmination of a 14-month project commissioned by On The Record, a not-for-profit co-operative devoted to audio and historical samples of London life. Initiated by two oral historians, Rosa Vilbr and Laura Mitchinson, On The Record have uncovered a mountain of audio gems which paint a picture of London’s vibrant history just as compelling as photography and film on their own can do. Working with skilled volunteers, they have trained members of the public in oral history and techniques such as digital storytelling.
“We aim to create participatory projects that involve more people in uncovering previously overlooked aspects of heritage”, Vilbr says. “SFTP was our first major project and has been our greatest achievement – recording and sharing an important part of London’s social history and exploring a fascinating site of political, religious and eccentric discussion and performance. Because we are an oral history organisation, we were fascinated by collecting oral histories of what is essentially a diminished tradition – outdoor public oratory and debate”.
The choice of Bishopsgate Institute as the venue to house SFTP was no accident: “We worked with Bishopsgate because it is dedicated to the history of free speech, labour movements, and progressive movement”, proclaims Vilbr. “The idea was to show the many meanings Speaker’s Corner has held for many diverse people over time. Another key theme is the dialogue and interaction that has historically taken place there – it’s not all about speakers shouting at people. Hecklers answer back, disrupt and question”.
Meanwhile, Vilbr has been involved with projects in Hackney as part of a background in community development: she was involved with a project called the Hackney Housing History Project, which explored oral histories of the borough.
“One of our directors lives in Hackney and we work here whenever we can”, she enthuses. Recalling last year, she remembers: “We ran digital storytelling workshops in May 2013 for adult learners from Hackney that were very popular”.
In addition, they are currently developing a project later this year researching the history of Centerprise, once one of Hackney’s principal community centres. They are also working with Campaign Against Arms Trade on a separate project called Selling to Both Sides, in which the arms trade during the First World War will be documented, along with the accompanying resistance to it. Both should be essential viewing – and listening too.
Sounds from the Park is at the Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, EC2M 4QH until 30 April.
