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CURRENT EXHIBITION
FORTHCOMING EXHIBITION
MOST RECENT EXHIBITION
Organised by October Gallery and the
Radical Distrust Project, University of Kent.
This workshop featuring Laila Shawa alongside writers, academics and curators will address the ways in which visual cultures construct, represent and contest separatisms, violence and the breakdown of social trust in the Middle East. From the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier to the street art that festoons it to the multi-layered and subversive works of Laila Shawa, visual cultures have a central role in the establishment of social trust amongst communities in the Middle East.
In this interdisciplinary, interactive forum we wish to examine the role of various visual modes including street art, graphic novels/comics, film, architecture/urban planning, photography, painting, installations, art theory and art education. Questions we will be addressing together are:
- How does distrust manifest itself in visual icons and in the organisation of space?
- How do individuals, communities and artists negotiate or contest these visual manifestations of distrust?
- Can visual arts play a role in redeveloping trust between divided groups? What might this entail?
Speakers will include Laila Shawa, Felicity Allen, Wendy Pullan, Gabriel Koureas, Sue Malvern and William Parry. Refreshments and drinks will be provided.
Spaces are limited for this free event so please RSVP to mariska@octobergallery.co.uk and N.A.Ahmed@kent.ac.uk
Radical Distrust: A Cultural Analysis of the Emotional, Psychological and Linguistic Formations of Religious and Political Extremism, University of Kent
The Radical Distrust research programme serves to analyse the emotional and psychological formations of extreme beliefs through a comparative study of literary texts and performance culture across the areas of postcolonial and Middle Eastern studies. Our research also explores the role that music, youth culture, literature and performance may play in establishing new forms of connectivity.
www.radicaldistrust.org |
| Saturday, 18th February, 2012 |
| ARTIST TALK: Laila Shawa |
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Entry £3
3 pm
Laila Shawa (born in Gaza in 1940 and currently living in London) will talk about her work in her new solo exhibition, The Other Side of Paradise. This new series, which draws on hyper-realism and Pop Art, addresses the phenomenon of female suicide bombers. Shawa investigates, for instance, the underlying conditions which may trigger/motivate the decision to take a path of no return. Shawa will place these new pieces in the context of her larger body of work, including her ongoing series of silk screens and prints The Walls of Gaza, which she started in 1992. Many of her works are socio-political critiques centring on issues such as injustice and inequality, specifically in times of repression, conflict and war, and affecting women and children in particular. Her talk will enable us to gain an insight into her work and her life, which has been dedicated to various artistic, political and educational projects in Gaza, Beirut and London.
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| Wednesday 22nd February 2012 |
FILM - THE CUTTING TRADITION: Insights into Female Genital Mutilation (narrated by Meryl Streep)
Introduced by Nancy Durrell McKenna, Director |
7pm
Doors open 18:30pm
Tickets include a glass of wine
£10.00 ticket – Profits to be donated to Safe Hands for Mothers www.safehands.org
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a harmful and brutal practice. It is estimated that up to 140 million women and girls have undergone some form of FGM, which should not be viewed as an isolated practice. Its justification is that it is an important initiation, which reinforces virginity, chastity, purity, marriageability and fidelity.
SafeHands for Mothers is a dynamic young charity whose mission is to reduce maternal and infant mortality in developing countries. The charity was commissioned by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) to make The Cutting Tradition, Insights into Female Genital Mutilation.
The Cutting Tradition is narrated by twice Academy Award Winner, Meryl Streep and was given the prestigious Best Documentary Award at the Australian Victoria independent Film Festival and won an award for Best Direction at the Philadelphia Documentary and Fiction Festival in 2010.
The Cutting Tradition was filmed in five countries: Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia and the UK, and highlights the complex social, religious, cultural and economic issues which underpin the ongoing practice of FGM. FGM is not just a cultural norm in parts of the developing world, but is also occurring among some practicing communities in the UK.
Nancy Durrell McKenna is an award-winning photographer and film-maker who has spent most of her professional life documenting the lives, rituals and traditions of women and families around the world and has produced work in collaboration with British Council, UNICEF, WHO, Save the Children and OXFAM.
In 1993, she won a Gold Award at the International New York Film and Television Festival for the pioneering film 'Birth: Eight Women's Stories' and was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Combined Royal Colleges Medal, for outstanding contributions to photography in the service of medicine and surgery in October 2007. As Executive Director of SafeHands, Nancy is dedicated to reducing maternal and newborn mortality globally.
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| Tuesday, 28th February, 2012 |
The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series, in association with the Scientific and Medical Network presents:
High society: Mind-altering drugs in history and culture
Dr Ben Sessa |
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Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please RSVP on Facebook (afraid so) so that we can anticipate numbers – Please pay on the door.
Ben will discuss:
- Psychedelic drugs in medicine – very brief history
- The history of therapeutic MDMA
- How MDMA works to enhance psychotherapy
- The scourge of PTSD
- Risks and relative safety of MDMA
- Challenges to the clinical use of PTSD
- MDMA, Politics and Medical Research
- The future for psychiatry
In Ben’s view this is not a controversial subject – such is the overwhelming evidence for the safety and efficacy of clinical MDMA use, but others may disagree. Please join the debate.
In the spirit of the modern, stream-lined NHS, Dr Ben Sessa will reduce costs by presenting his biography in salient bullet points:
- 1972 born to a left-wing libertarian Quaker family; encouraged to protest peacefully, shun television, sew and play the piano.
- 1987 suffered near-death experience on school rock climbing holiday and decided to strive to become ‘the world’s first doctor who didn’t hurt children’.
- 1994 completed psychology BSc at UCL.
- 1997 qualified as medical doctor in London in 1997 then went to Oxford to specialise in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
- 2005 shocked by my profession’s apparent lack of knowledge about psychedelics published an article in the British Journal of Psychiatry – the first mention of medical LSD since the 1960s.
- 2007 join Professor David Nutt’s psychopharmacology department in Bristol and contribute to the now infamous Home Office review of Ecstasy, which eventually lead to David’s sacking as chair of the ACMD.
- 2009 become the first person in the UK in 40 years to be legally given a psychedelic drug, when injected by David Nutt with intravenous psilocybin as part of a Bristol University research project.
- 2011 co-chairs UK psychedelic conference Breaking Convention.
Currently working clinically with the National Deaf Child and
Adolescent Mental Health Service and continuing to research psychedelic drugs as medical treatments.
- 2012 plans to run UK’s first MDMA clinical study
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I am driven to promote the subject of Psychedelic Therapy by the observation that traditional psychiatric treatments are often failing my patients. We owe it to these people to do this research."
This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month. Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list. |
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