Lavender Menace The Language of Queer Feminism

26 Apr-31 May 2024

Overview

MA Curating students present Lavender Menace, an exhibition which explores the representation of feminist activism and queer sexuality in contemporary art, through written language.

The artists on show inventively insert language into textiles, zines and mosaics in unexpected and humorous ways. In doing so, they reveal the written word’s powerful ability to convey desire, assert identity, and challenge societal constructions of gender and sexuality. Often engaging with historical protest material, the artists celebrate the infinite possibilities of desire, creativity and resilience through their work. This is reinforced by the archival material also on display, which joins in this celebration of the written word’s power to reclaim and fashion queer feminist identities.

Lavender Menace includes work by artists Mirta Cerioli, Sarah-Joy Ford, Caroline Glover, Helen Maguire, Liberty Antonia Sadler, Anna Sampson, E L West, and archival material loaned from the Bishopsgate Institute and University of Essex, including newspapers by the Gay Liberation Front and poems by Pat Parker.

Curated by MA Curating students from the Department of Philosophical, Historical and Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Essex: Ruby Bowd, Ieva Cebatoriute, Yuwan Cao, Yutang Chang, Jou-Han Chen, Tilly Hawkins, Hiromi Horiuchi and Emma Stanley.

Image courtesy of Sarah-Joy Ford