A Snapshot of Southend as a Cultural Environment for Womxn
Updates:
- An image from the Snapshot ("Collaboration over Competition") was used to illustrate the TOMA/TOW essay in Co-operative Education, Politics, and Art Creative, Critical, and Community Resistance to Corporate Higher Education (Routledge Press Aug 2024)
- The Snapshot publication was exhibited as part of "Southend's Twilight Worlds" exhibition, 16 July -8 October 2022. Full information on the exhibition website.
Ruth Kathryn 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, Ruth and I applied for a-n bursary funding 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 result is "A Snapshot of Southend as a Cultural Environment for Womxn Artists", a publication giving voice to our collaborators’ (and our own) experiences within the creative sector. Developed as a risographed artists edition of 50, published by The Old Waterworks (TOW), it is presented as a boxed set of 52 cards, with an A4 folded risograph explanatory sheet, card fold, and printed sleeve cover.
This snapshot has 52 of the most important, common and frequent points that were raised by the womxn and femmes we talked to. Some of them are statements, some are questions, some are positive and some could be solutions. We paired them back and front so they can be laid out however the user wishes, and read them in the way that make the most sense to them. There’s no ONE way to read them, just like there’s no ONE way that womxn and femmes experience the cultural landscape of Southend and beyond.
This publication uses the typeface Mrs Eaves, designed by Zuzana Licko in 1996, and named after Sarah Eaves to honour one of the forgotten women in the history of typography.
As part of our desire to expand the Agency as a collaborative, exhibiting group of women artists, Ruth and I applied for a-n bursary funding 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 result is "A Snapshot of Southend as a Cultural Environment for Womxn Artists", a publication giving voice to our collaborators’ (and our own) experiences within the creative sector. Developed as a risographed artists edition of 50, published by The Old Waterworks (TOW), it is presented as a boxed set of 52 cards, with an A4 folded risograph explanatory sheet, card fold, and printed sleeve cover.
This snapshot has 52 of the most important, common and frequent points that were raised by the womxn and femmes we talked to. Some of them are statements, some are questions, some are positive and some could be solutions. We paired them back and front so they can be laid out however the user wishes, and read them in the way that make the most sense to them. There’s no ONE way to read them, just like there’s no ONE way that womxn and femmes experience the cultural landscape of Southend and beyond.
This publication uses the typeface Mrs Eaves, designed by Zuzana Licko in 1996, and named after Sarah Eaves to honour one of the forgotten women in the history of typography.
Images by Anna Lukala
Publication launch was postponed by COVID-19 but we launched the physical edition alongside a (free) digital version in 2020, plus text-only and dyslexia-friendly digital variations. All are available via the TOW website, but you can also download the free versions here
The project and publication development was blogged on the a-n website.
Covid-19 collided with pre-existing inequalities, so that different groups of women are disproportionately impacted. The majority of artists and creatives were already living precariously with insecure income and low pay; the pandemic increased this precarity. In an AN survey, 93% of respondents said that they, their practice or career had been affected, with 60% expecting a 50% reduction in income. Therefore women creatives were 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."
The project and publication development was blogged on the a-n website.
Covid-19 collided with pre-existing inequalities, so that different groups of women are disproportionately impacted. The majority of artists and creatives were already living precariously with insecure income and low pay; the pandemic increased this precarity. In an AN survey, 93% of respondents said that they, their practice or career had been affected, with 60% expecting a 50% reduction in income. Therefore women creatives were 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."
