A Snapshot of Southend as a Cultural Environment for Womxn
The Snapshot publication will be exhibited as parts of "Southend's Twilight Worlds" exhibition, 16 July -8 October 2022. Full information on the exhibition website.
Ruth Jones founded the Agency of Visible Women in 2018. Initially intended as a play on words for an exhibition, The Agency's positive impact on its members in its capacity as an artist network resulted in our determination to develop an actual institution.
As part of our desire to expand the Agency as a collaborative, exhibiting group of women artists, we applied to a-n to conduct research in our home town with the women and femmes we know and those we had not yet met. This took place over the summer and autumn of 2019.
The resulting publication is "A Snapshot of Southend as a Cultural Environment for Womxn Artists", a risographed artists edition of 50, published by The Old Waterworks (TOW). This is presented as a boxed set of 52 cards, with an A4 folded risograph explanatory sheet, card fold, and printed sleeve cover.
Publication launch was postponed by COVID-19 but we have launched the physical edition alongside a (free) digital version, plus text-only and dyslexia-friendly digital variations. All are available via the TOW website.
Covid-19 collides with pre-existing inequalities so that different groups of women will be disproportionately impacted. The majority of artists and creatives were already living precariously with insecure income and low pay; the pandemic has increased this precarity. In an AN survey, 93% of respondents said that they, their practice or career had been affected by the pandemic, with 60% expecting a 50% reduction in income. Therefore women creatives are likely to be doubly affected and the words of the women who contributed to the the publication have more resonance than ever:
"Collaboration over Competition"
"Community over Institution."
August 2020 Images by Anna Lukala
As part of our desire to expand the Agency as a collaborative, exhibiting group of women artists, we applied to a-n to conduct research in our home town with the women and femmes we know and those we had not yet met. This took place over the summer and autumn of 2019.
The resulting publication is "A Snapshot of Southend as a Cultural Environment for Womxn Artists", a risographed artists edition of 50, published by The Old Waterworks (TOW). This is presented as a boxed set of 52 cards, with an A4 folded risograph explanatory sheet, card fold, and printed sleeve cover.
Publication launch was postponed by COVID-19 but we have launched the physical edition alongside a (free) digital version, plus text-only and dyslexia-friendly digital variations. All are available via the TOW website.
Covid-19 collides with pre-existing inequalities so that different groups of women will be disproportionately impacted. The majority of artists and creatives were already living precariously with insecure income and low pay; the pandemic has increased this precarity. In an AN survey, 93% of respondents said that they, their practice or career had been affected by the pandemic, with 60% expecting a 50% reduction in income. Therefore women creatives are likely to be doubly affected and the words of the women who contributed to the the publication have more resonance than ever:
"Collaboration over Competition"
"Community over Institution."
August 2020 Images by Anna Lukala
