Stories and their tellers: Curating living knowledge for a decolonised, gender just future

03-05 June 2024

University of Arts London, 16 John Islip Street, Room BG07

Monday, 03 June

13:00 – 13:30 – Welcomes

* University of Arts London/Chelsea College of Arts – Carol

* Gathering and overview of the program – Darlene

* Filming and interviews– Serap

13:30 – 14:15 – Feminist Bingo and participant introductions – Darlene

14:15 – 15:30 – Tellers telling stories (Moderator: Kerry)

Darlene Clover – Looking back to think forward: Storytelling critique, possibility and a new feminist imaginary (Canada)

Carol Tulloch – I have been doing exhibition storytelling all along: Black feminist curators and stories (England)

Gaby Franger – Threads that break the silence: Storytelling, participation, empowerment (Germany)

15:30 – 16:00 – Tea and stretch break

16:00 – 17:15 – Tellers telling stories (Moderator: Darlene)

Elke Krasny and Lara Perry – Women’s museums and decolonial feminism (Austria & England)

Sadia Habib – Fostering solidarity, social justice, and sisterhood in museum spaces (England)

Lindsay Delaronde – Embodied earth: Resurgence of Indigenous sovereignty through land-based dramaturgy (Performance: Sturgeon Women Rising) (Canada)

17:45 – 18:30 – Interviews (or free time) – Serap

18:45 – Dinner – Dragon Inn Club, 16-18 Upper Tachbrook St, Pimlico 

Tuesday, 04 June

9:30 – 9:45 – Iroquois Women’s Shuffle Dance – Lindsay

9:45 – 11:00 – Tellers telling stories (Moderator: Sarah)

Tihana Puc – Not a day without herstory (Croatia)

Sinead McCoole – Lá na mBan/The day of Women’ – Telling Irish women’s stories (Ireland)

Lizzie Dunford – Her Brother’s House: Addressing gender and class at Jane Austen’s House (England)

11:00 – 11:15 – Tea and stretch break

11:15 – 12:10 – Tellers telling stories (Moderator: Carol)

Tijana Jakovljević Šević – Autoethnographic method in museum storytelling: The ‘Birth Culture’ exhibition (Serbia/Germany)

Sarah Williamson – Trick or Tweet: ArtActivistBarbie (AAB) as feminist trickster storyteller (England)

12:10 – 13:00 – Light lunch (provided)

13:00 – 14:15 – Tellers telling stories (Moderator: Gaby) (Online)

Maissan Hassan – Feminist imaginary in archival work: Reflections

(Egypt/Netherlands)

Samba Yonga – Animating herstories: AI and digital storytelling (Zambia)

Claudia Mandel-Katz – Afro-Caribbean decolonial stories of memory and resistance (Costa Rica)

14:15 – 18:00 – Visiting Museum Exhibitions (Dinner on your own)

* Acts of resistance: Photography, feminisms and the art of protest, South London Gallery

* Fashion City, Docklands Museum (museum also addresses the slave trade)

* Polly Braden: Leaving Ukraine, Foundling Museum (stories of women fleeing)

* Women’s Weeds: The hidden history of women in medicine, Museum of the Home

* Now you see us: Women artists in Britain 1520-1920, Tate Britain

* Judy Chicago: Revelations, Serpentine Gallery North

* Soulscapes (Retelling of landscape by African diaspora),Dulwich Picture Gallery

* Angelica Kauffman, Royal Academy of Arts

* Tea (Cha, Chai & Tea), Horniman Museum

* Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music, British Library

Wednesday 05 June

9:45 – 10:45    Reflections on museum exhibition and this gathering (Facilitator: Kerry)

1) What were the most powerful stories in the exhibition(s)you visited and why?

2) How do our feminist stories and storytelling set free histories and voices long denied and give them cultural, social and intellectual credibility?

3) How do stories and storytelling encourage new knowledge and knowing about the past and the present? What do they give the future?

4) What is the ‘feminist imaginary’ in our work? How does storytelling and making bring it into being? 

5) What array of devices are being used gather, assemble and curate stories to make women’s words, deeds and knowledges matter?

6) What are ‘living knowledges’ in our work? What ways of knowing come to life?

7) How does storytelling transform experiences of oppression into critical insights and make new information memorable?

10:45 – 11:00  Tea and stretch break

11:00 – 11:15  International Association of Women’s Museums (IAWM) (Gaby)

11:15- – 12:30 Current and future publications (Darlene)

* Studies in the Education of Adults

* Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education

* Working book title: Educating and curating the feminist imaginary: Visualising, acting and storytelling

12:30 – Closing activity (Darlene)