This talk will look at how Lili Brik’s position, as both muse and socialite, reflected the changing gender norms and the status of women in the decades following the Russian revolution. We will discuss the depictions of women in popular visual culture and art to illuminate the nuances and contradictions that existed in Soviet society in the 1920s and 1930s as the establishment of the new social order was taking place.
This panel will approach craft from the perspective of three of its authors who work with a diverse range of craft histories, chaired by Laura Moseley, Common Threads Press founder and Assistant Curator of the Women’s Art Collection.
Speakers include Gill Crawshaw (Rights Not Charity: Protest Textiles and Disability Activism, 2023) and Rachel Dedman (Stitching the Intifada: Embroidery and Resistance in Palestine, 2024).
This exhibition presents eight contemporary artists whose works offer vantage points on a world in perpetual crisis. Rather than representing specific political events, or taking singular positions, each artist in this exhibition explores broader conditions of domination and conflict, as well as horizons for survival.
Jade's socially engaged practice primarily encapsulates poetry, drawing, performance and research. Queerness and critiquing the portrayal of Black bodies in Western popular culture are recurring themes in her work.
Join exhibition curator Victoria Avery, alongside researchers Dawnanna Kreeger and Carol Brown-Leonardi, as they share their latest findings on prominent abolitionist and writer Olaudah Equiano (c.1745 - 1797) and the two pivotal women in his life: his wife, Susannah Cullen (1762–1796), from Ely, and his daughter, Joanna Vassa (1795–1857), born in Soham, raised in Chesterton and Cambridge, and later living in London.
Discover the distinctive visual language of British-Nigerian artist Joy Labinjo as she discusses her works in Rise Up, including an important new addition to the Fitzwilliam Museum's growing contemporary art collection, An Eighteenth-Century Family (2022). Drawing inspiration from her heritage, Labinjo’s art delves into the social, cultural, and political contexts that shape her everyday life.
Join contemporary British artist Kimathi Donkor for an insightful talk on his work in Rise Up. Discover the inspiration behind his evocative creations as Donkor discusses how his art reimagines mythical, legendary, and domestic encounters from Africa and its global diasporas.
British contemporary artist Karen McLean talks about her powerful work Ar’n’t I a Woman! (2021), on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum's Rise Up exhibition. Rooted in historical research, McLean’s installations, sound and moving image works incorporate evocative and symbolic materials such as sugar, blue soap and hessian bags and interrogate the complex legacies of colonialism.
Focusing on the selection of his artworks on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum's Rise Up exhibition, British contemporary artist, critic and academic Keith Piper discusses his wider creative practice and how he uses art as a tool to engage with historical and geographical narratives as well as the legacies and social issues affecting us today.
Clarkson’s chest of objects – currently on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum's Rise Up exhibition – acted as a ‘travelling museum’, helping him campaign against the slave trade. In collaboration with Coleman and the Museum, late British poet Benjamin Zephaniah wrote a poem all about Clarkson titled ‘The Rebel from Wisbech’.
