Buy tickets for BED TALKS at Zoom, Sun 3 May 2020 - Ideas worth lying down for.Playing on the popularity of both TED Talks and our society's obsession with the newest “hot take”, the BED TALKS series allows artists, activists and academics to spotlight their practice. opinions and experiences in an evening of live streamed talks and curated conversations. Sharing skills, knowledge and pearls of wisdom from one bed to another. We present a programme of 4 speakers to tackle a subject or viewpoint of their choice in 10-20 minutes. Each talk includes a question and answer session and recommended resources from the speaker at the end. Speakers: Nancy AKA Camp Dad- Life's a Drag! From Cross-dressing to Transfiguration."Helen Antrobus: Do Not Workship False IdolsSuriya Aisha- Self Care.. And other lies we tell ourselves...Beth Redmond- This Must Be The Place...
Nancy AKA Camp Dad: "Life's a Drag! From Cross-dressing to Transfiguration."
From Burnley, now living in Berlin
Nancy is a performance artist and producer living and working in Berlin. They are perhaps better known as their Drag King alter-ego- Camp Dad. They founded, produce and perform with the Drag collective 'Venus Boys', which provides a welcoming space to those outside of the mainstream peripheries of the drag scene. This is a collective for the Kings, the non-binary artists, the post-gender performers, the weirdos, basically for those who can not and will not fit into the mainstream drag culture peddled by particular TV shows.
As a trans-femme, Nancy’s talk will not only cover drag as a means to explore and critique gender identity and sexuality, but also how drag itself is steeped in “norms” and can often be a misogynistic space that enforces the gender norms it seeks to dissect. What is drag? Is it about changing your gender? If so, what does this mean? What is the distinction between a drag performance and everyday gender performativity? What does this mean in relation to transness?
Helen Antrobus: Do Not Worship False Idols
From Salford, now living in Todmorden.
Helen Antrobus has been curating the histories of radical and rebellious women since her time at the People’s History Museum, and is no stranger to their incredible deeds and words. But what happens when the women we put up on pedestals, and worship as our heroines (and sometimes even build a statue of), have an equally questionable past? From feminism to fascism, from rebellion to racism, the radical women of our past – and upon whose shoulders we often hope to stand on – have a darker side. So how do we reconcile the two? Helen has one answer: protesting the pedestal, tearing down the temple, and re-embracing the woman – not the goddess.
Helen Antrobus is a social history curator and historian from Salford. Previously of the People’s History Museum and now at the National Trust, Helen specialises in the lives of early 20th Century radical and political women. As a public historian she has appeared on programmes such as the One Show, Who Do You Think You Are, Edwardian Britain in Colour, Britain’s Lost Masterpieces, as well as BBC Radio 4’s Ramblings and Great Lives. Her first book, First in the Fight: Twenty Women Who Made Manchester, was published in Autumn 2019.
Suriya Aisha- Self-care'...and other lies we tell ourselves.
From From Birmingham, now living in Manchester
Suriya is an activist, artist and producer. As a poet and playwright she brings to light the extraordinary in the everyday. She is the founder of LGBT poc network @unmutedbrum, and host of brand new podcast @sickbabepod (coming soon!), which platforms the experiences of womxn and non-binary people living with physical invisible disabilities.
In this talk Suriya investigates the world of 'self - care' and questions whether it can ever exist without the presence of community care, what does care look like in the here and now? Beth Redmond: This Must Be The Place
Originally from Merseyside, now in Manchester
Beth Redmond is an organiser in the housing movement across Greater Manchester, fighting to level the playing field for tenants in the private and social rented sector. Beth explains why Manchester's rented sector is booming for wealthy property investors and what that means for renters in the city. Sky high rents, absent and greedy landlords and a significant lack of community envelop mirrored tower blocks which leads us to ask: who is Manchester for?
Providing context to Manchester’s housing crisis, Beth will discuss how central housing is to many other issues the city experiences and how the pandemic has exacerbated an already fragile problem. We are using a triple tiered ticketing system as follows:
Unwaged/Key worker discount: £3
Standard: £5
Solidarity: £8 As freelance artists and producers who make our living from live events and projects that bring people together, many of us have lost our entire income stream overnight. We understand these are trying financial times for many, please use the tiered system honestly to pay what you feel comfortable and can afford to do so.
