Join Dr Tracey Lindberg in conversation with Valentina de Riso, as part of the When I Dare to be Powerful conference at Bonington Gallery.
Valentina de Riso will be in conversation with Dr Tracey Lindberg on Indigenous voice in literature. This online talk will explore writing as a form of activist engagement, with fiction a site of resistance and a tool for empowerment. Tracey Lindberg will discuss voice as represented and mobilised in her novel Birdie, and the personal and collective implications of storytelling at the intersection with activist and academic work.
This event is part of online talks series leading to the in-person conference When I Dare to be Powerful, on 21 June at Bonington Gallery. The international conference will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists, together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists in order to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change.
Image credit: David Weatherall
Bio:
Professor Tracey Lindberg hails from the As’in’î’wa’chî Ni’yaw (Kelly Lake Cree Nation) and grew up in small cities and towns in Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan (including, Melfort, Nipawin and Prince Albert). She studied law at the University of Saskatchewan, Harvard Law School (LLM) and the University of Ottawa (PhD). Her academic work Critical Indigenous Legal Theory won the University of Ottawa’s Gold Medal and the ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award.
Tracey Lindberg’s work with Elder Maria Campbell and Priscilla Campeau “Indigenous Women and Sexual Assault in Canada” (in Elizabeth Sheehy ed. Ch. 5, Indigenous Women and Sexual Assault in Canada (Ottawa: U Ottawa, 2017) represents the legal thinking and pedagogy in which she is most interested and engaged and includes engagement with Cree laws, critical Indigenous legal theory and storytelling. Her best-selling novel Birdie is widely read and used to teach courses worldwide.
Professor Lindberg studies, reads and practices Niyaw / Cree law, and works in the areas of Indigenous law and literature, Indigenous legal theory, the rejuvenation and application of Indigenous laws and Indigenous women’s societies, laws and legal orders.
Her next work will be on bookshelves this fall. It is called: sâkihitowin: the Cree word for love and features 16 intertwined stories about the spectrum of love tied to 20 pieces of art by Cree painter George Littlechild.
Tracey currently teaches at the University of Victoria faculty of law.
Valentina de Riso (she/her) is a Vice Chancellor’s Studentship PhD student at Nottingham Trent University. Her research focuses on contemporary writings by First Nations, Métis, and Inuit women who challenge and re-think models for testimony and Indigenous-settler relations in Canada. Her thesis examines motifs of mutual understanding, healing, forgiveness, and empathy which, when employed in national discourses of reconciliation risk naturalising, pathologising, or sensationalising Indigenous experiences of violence and trauma. They are re-imagined in Indigenous women’s productions. Valentina published her article ‘Spin the Tale Inside: Opacity and Respectful Distance in Lee Maracle’s Celia’s Song’ in the academic journal Studies in Canadian Literature (SCL) in 2021.
Join Jeff VanderMeer in conversation with Trang Dang, as part of the When I Dare to be Powerful conference at Bonington Gallery.
Trang Dang and science fiction author Jeff VanderMeer will explore and discuss nonhuman voices, resistance, and activism in an age of anthropogenic climate change and the power of storytelling in accentuating these voices.
This event is part of online talks series leading to the in-person conference When I Dare to be Powerful, on 21 June at Bonington Gallery. The international conference will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists, together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists in order to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change.
Image credit: Kyle Cassidy
Bios:
Jeff VanderMeer has been profiled by the New York Times, Audubon Magazine, and the Guardian, in large part for his environmentalism and his exploration of the nonhuman world in his fiction. His NYT-bestselling Southern Reach trilogy has been translated into over 35 languages. The first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and Shirley Jackson Award, and was made into a film by Paramount in 2018. Other works include Dead Astronauts, Borne (a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award), and The Strange Bird. These novels, set in the Borne universe, are being developed for TV by AMC. His most recent novel, Hummingbird Salamander (MCD/FSG), a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, interrogates the foundations of our modern world in an environmental context. Called “the weird Thoreau” by The New Yorker, VanderMeer frequently speaks about issues related to climate change and storytelling. His nonfiction about wildlife and nature has appeared in Orion Magazine, Esquire, and the Los Angeles Times, amongst others. In January of 2023, VanderMeer founded the Sunshine State Biodiversity Group, a non-profit devoted to rewilding, biodiversity education, and environmental journalism. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife Ann, cat Neo, and a yard full of native plants.
Trang Dang (she/her) is a PhD researcher in literary studies at Nottingham Trent University, funded by NTU Studentship Scheme, and previously graduated from Oxford Brookes University with a BA and an MA in English Literature. Her PhD project focuses on Jeff VanderMeer’s weird fiction, exploring narratives of co-existence between humans and nonhumans and the role of new weird novels in portraying the current climate crisis. Her main research interests are contemporary literature, cli/sci-fi, critical theory, and continental philosophy. She has published on the topics of animal studies, American culture and politics, and the Anthropocene.
Join Jasmine Qureshi in conversation with Trang Dang, as part of the When I Dare to be Powerful conference at Bonington Gallery.
Trang Dang and queer writer, journalist, wildlife TV researcher Jasmine Qureshi will discuss the role of voice in her journey into environmental conservation and activism and in addressing the intersecting gender and environmental issues we are currently facing.
This event is part of online talks series leading to the in-person conference When I Dare to be Powerful, on 21 June at Bonington Gallery. The international conference will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists, together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists in order to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change.
Bios:
Jasmine Isa Qureshi is a writer and a storyteller. She is also a wildlife television/media researcher, previously working at Wild Space Productions on a series for Netflix, BBC Natural History Unit/BBC Earth, and Sound Off Films, a freelance wildlife filmmaker, an ambassador for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, an engagement officer for the youth led nature organisation A Focus On Nature, an activist, and a marine biologist. She is passionate about wildlife, conservation and the environment, and can usually be found on the coast, combing for marine life, and exploring the ruins and new builds of our urban jungles, and speaking and writing far too much about insects and arthropods. As a speaker and journalist, she has found a place for herself to share her passion for topics such as diversity in workplaces and in all the subjects she is involved with, politics and how it affects science and nature but also the social sciences, sexuality, identity and gender, particularly trans rights and the understanding of these; and has been able to contribute to events around the country such as Norwich Science Festival, Cheltenham Science Festival, etc. As a presenter, she has been involved with CBeebies, Edinburgh Science Festival, and VOX Media.
Trang Dang (she/her) is a PhD researcher in literary studies at Nottingham Trent University, funded by NTU Studentship Scheme, and previously graduated from Oxford Brookes University with a BA and an MA in English Literature. Her PhD project focuses on Jeff VanderMeer’s weird fiction, exploring narratives of co-existence between humans and nonhumans and the role of new weird novels in portraying the current climate crisis. Her main research interests are contemporary literature, cli/sci-fi, critical theory, and continental philosophy. She has published on the topics of animal studies, American culture and politics, and the Anthropocene.
When I Dare to be Powerful International Conference explores the idea of voice as an agent for change and act of resistance.
Click here to reserve your ticket for the free in person conference
When I Dare to be Powerful International Conference will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change.
Centred on voice as a lens through which we conceive of a social alterity that undermines current ideological dominance, we would like to invite proposals from academics, practitioners and activists interested in exploring coming to voice as an act of resistance. Has adequate progress been made in remedying the lived experience of minoritised people? How will social parity be achieved? Can dissent facilitate a space from which an alternative, socio-cultural narrative can thrive?
When I Dare To Be Powerful one-day conference offers a packed programme of events running up to and including the conference itself:
The conference period begins on 26th April and runs through to the one-day conference in June. Join us in the conversations relating to voice, around which our one-day conference is based.
The conference is free to attend and will take place in person on Wednesday 21st June 2023.
Visit our When I Dare To Be Powerful website to find our more about the conference timetable.
Join Ather Zia in conversation with with Amir Kaur Aujula-Jones and Trang Dang, as part of the When I Dare to be Powerful conference at Bonington Gallery.
Amir Kaur Aujla-Jones and Trang Dang are in conversation with Ather Zia about writing as a powerful tool to amplify the voices of women active in the Kashmir conflict. Their voices are often ignored in a dominant narrative that fails to give them agency and instead writes them as victims of the conflict.
This event is part of online talks series leading to the in-person conference When I Dare to be Powerful, on 21 June at Bonington Gallery. The international conference will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists, together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists in order to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change.
Bio:
Ather Zia, Ph.D., is a political anthropologist, poet, short fiction writer, and columnist. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Gender Studies program at the University of Northern Colorado Greeley. Ather is the author of Resisting Disappearances: Military Occupation and Women’s Activism in Kashmir (June 2019) which won the 2020 Gloria Anzaldua Honorable Mention award, 2021 Public Anthropologist Award, and Advocate of the Year Award 2021. She has been featured in the Femilist 2021, a list of 100 women from the Global South working on critical issues. She is the co-editor of Can You Hear Kashmiri Women Speak (Women Unlimited 2020), Resisting Occupation in Kashmir (Upenn 2018) and A Desolation called Peace (Harper Collins, May 2019). She has published a poetry collection “The Frame” and another collection is forthcoming. Ather’s ethnographic poetry on Kashmir has won an award from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology. She is the founder-editor of Kashmir Lit and is the co-founder of Critical Kashmir Studies Collective, an interdisciplinary network of scholars working on the Kashmir region. Ather is also a co-editor of Cultural Anthropology.
Amir Kaur Aujla-Jones (she/her) has a BA (Hons) in History from the University of Sussex, a MA in Education from the University of Nottingham and a PhD in Sociology from Nottingham Trent University. Dr Aujla-Jones’s research has focused on race and gender equality using an intersectional lens. Her PhD thesis examined the lived experience of Black, Asian, and Mixed-race girls in predominantly white English secondary schools. Dr Aujla-Jones is part of Conscience Collective, an international network based in the UK aiming to extend understanding of climate and social justice.
Trang Dang (she/her) is a PhD researcher in literary studies at Nottingham Trent University, funded by NTU Studentship Scheme, and previously graduated from Oxford Brookes University with a BA and an MA in English Literature. Her PhD project focuses on Jeff VanderMeer’s weird fiction, exploring narratives of co-existence between humans and nonhumans and the role of new weird novels in portraying the current climate crisis. Her main research interests are contemporary literature, cli/sci-fi, critical theory, and continental philosophy. She has published on the topics of animal studies, American culture and politics, and the Anthropocene.
Professor Gus John and poet Yolanda Lear join Jenni Ramone’s Black Writing in Britain students and Formations audiences for a special event on the history of New Beacon Books and its place in the history of Black British publishing, writing, and activism.
Gus John discusses publishing, decolonisation, and the contemporary university. Yolanda Lear reads and discusses her poetry, and both speakers engage in conversation with English and Creative Writing students at NTU.
FORMATIONS is a public events series which foregrounds under-represented artists, writers, thinkers, and activists, run by NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre and Bonington Gallery.
Click here to reserve your spot at this free online event.
Biographies:
Professor Gus John is one of the co-founders of the Communities Empowerment Network – CEN. He is also a writer, education campaigner, consultant, lecturer and researcher.
He has worked extensively in the fields of education policy, management and international development and as a social analyst he specialises in social audits, change management, policy formulation and review, and programme evaluation and development.
Since the 1960s Gus has been visibly active in issues of education and schooling in Britain’s inner cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and London, and was the first black Director of Education and Leisure Services in Britain. Gus has also worked in a number of university settings, including as visiting Faculty Professor of Education at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, as an associate professor of education and honorary fellow of the London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the UCL Institute of Education, University of London and is a visiting professor at Coventry University.
A respected public speaker and media commentator, Gus works internationally as an executive coach and a management and social investment consultant. He is also a frequent contributor to the Guardian, writing on subjects including Windrush, universities and education, racism in UK institutions, and about Grenada, which is where he was born.
He is a Non-Executive Director for New Beacon Books, which was established in 1966, and is the only remaining independent Black publishing and bookselling entity in the UK. it has been central to the growth of the Black Education Movement, the Black Supplementary School Movement and current calls for the decolonisation of the curriculum.
Yolanda Lear is 28 years old. The project lead for Account Hackney, she is also a poet, an advocate for mental health, a community activist, public speaker, public rep, self-published author, youth leader and spoken word artist. Yolanda has a strong desire to create a positive change within her community and others. With her book, The Journey To An Undefeated Mind, and her workshop, she aims to empower, encourage, inspire and motivate others to take charge of their own paths in life, and help improve their own well-being.
Account Hackney is a youth-led Police Monitoring and Scrutiny Group based in Hackney. Holding the police to account, and empowering our community.
Instagram: @HackneyAccount
‘The Undefeated Mind’
Email: Info@theundefeatedmind.co.uk
Website: Theundefeatedmind.co.uk
Instagram: The_undefeatedmind
To coincide with Cedar Lewisohn’s solo exhibition earlier this year, Patois Banton, join us for a free online talk by Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson entitled Questioning Language and Knowledge: The Challenge to Creole-speaking Communities. This will be followed by a Q&A with Ramisha Rafique.
This event follows on from an in conversation with Cedar Lewisohn, Ioney Smallhorne and Honey Williams which can be watched here.
“That children learn best in their mother language, has been known for several decades. However, the application has been very slow in societies where the mother language of the majority is a Creole language. This is due to what I refer to as an epistemological blind spot emerging from what colonial and neo-colonial education determine to be (real) knowledge, and how those ideological systems designate the languages that are the vehicles of ‘real’ knowledge.
Given their historic low status, Creole languages like Jamaican, Haitian Creole, Barbadian, are therefore not seen as proper receptacles of knowledge. In an attempt to unpack the philosophy of language that drives this state of affairs, I explore the historical roots of these views, and the ways in which they undermine and stunt the production, dissemination, and development of indigenous forms of knowledge.” – Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson, Coordinator, Jamaican Language Unit
FORMATIONS is a public events series which foregrounds under-represented artists, writers, thinkers, and activists, run by NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre and Bonington Gallery.
Click here to reserve your spot at this free online event.
Biographies:
Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at The University of the West Indies, Mona. Dr. Farquharson holds B.A. in Linguistics and Spanish and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from UWI, and an M.Phil. in European Literature (Spanish) from the University of Cambridge. He has been serving as the Coordinator of the Jamaican Language Unit (JLU) since August 2019 and is currently a member of the Communication & Information Advisory Committee of the Jamaica National Commission for UNESCO, and the Convenor of the subject panel for CAPE Communication Studies.
Ramisha Rafique is a PhD studentship funded PhD candidate at Nottingham Trent University. Her creative-critical doctoral thesis explores the ontology of the postcolonial flâneuse, considering class, language, religion, and global technological advancements. Her research interests include Islamophobia, British Muslim women’s writing, and flânerie.
This multi-channel video installation from internationally-acclaimed photographer Emily Andersen, explores the work and life of Ruth Fainlight (b.1931) – an American-born poet and writer.
Ruth’s intensely visual poetry and fiction touch on themes of psychological and domestic situations, time, memory and loss. Born in New York City in 1931, she moved to England when she was 15. In 1959 she married the writer, Alan Sillitoe, and her many literary friendships included Sylvia Plath, Jane and Paul Bowles, and Robert Graves.
Andersen’s work is an intimate portrait of Fainlight, now aged 91, presenting fragments of the poet’s life. Taking inspiration from Renaissance triptychs and their depiction of different elements of the same subject across three panels, Somewhere Else Entirely captures the poet and writer at her home in London, making notes, on her walks, and in the seaside town of Brighton where she spent her teenage years.
In Somewhere Else Entirely Fainlight talks off-screen, revealing fascinating insights into her life, her creative process, and how she is ‘in the hands of the poem’. In her voiceover, she movingly recites her poem ‘Somewhere Else Entirely’ composed after the death of her husband.
Alongside the exhibition commissioned an essay by Daniella Schreir, editor of the Feminist Film Journal Another Gaze, which can be read here.
Come along to our launch night on Friday 24 March, 6 pm – 8 pm for a first look round the exhibition, alongside Nottingham Women’s Centre in our Vitrines. There will also be free food from 6 pm. Book your free tickets
Emily Andersen is a London-based artist and graduate of the Royal College of Art. Her work has been exhibited in galleries including:
A number of her portraits are in the permanent collection of The National Portrait Gallery, London. She has won awards including the John Kobal prize for portraiture. Her third book Another Place was published in 2023. She is a Senior Lecturer in theory and practice of photography at the Nottingham School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University.
Director, Producer, Cinematographer – Emily Andersen
Additional Cinematographer- Bella Riza
Interviews – Kiki Martins and Emily Andersen
Editor – Jonathan Schmidt-Ott
Sound editor – Liam Larkin
Re-recording mixer- Rainer Heesch
Colourist – Jason R. Moffat
Production Assistant – Kyra Paloma
Image: Ruth Fainlight by Emily Andersen
Somewhere Else Entirely is photographer Emily Andersen’s first completed video portrait and is inspired by her decade-long friendship with poet Ruth Fainlight. To coincide with the exhibition, Emily and Ruth will be joining us for a free in-conversation event, hosted by Duncan Higgins, Professor of Visual Art at NTU.
Discover how the artists’ relationship grew after a chance meeting, hear how Emily’s intimate video work was made and enjoy a special reading by Ruth.
BIOGRAPHIES
Emily Andersen has been a photographer for four decades. Her work includes interiors, architecture, and landscape but she is best known for her award-winning portraiture, capturing well-known faces including Nico, Peter Blake, and Helen Mirren. A number of her portraits are in the permanent collection of The National Portrait Gallery, London. She has won awards including the John Kobal prize for portraiture. She is a Senior Lecturer in photography at the Nottingham School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University.
Ruth Fainlight (b. New York City , 1931) is an award-winning poet and translator, whose collections have spanned five decades. Fainlight has lived in England since the age of 15, achieving success in fiction, translation and opera libretti as well as poetry. In 1959 she married the writer, Alan Sillitoe, and her many literary friendships included Sylvia Plath, Jane and Paul Bowles, and Robert Graves. She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008.
Join Bonington Gallery’s Director, Tom Godfrey for a relaxed lunchtime tour of our current exhibitions, Somewhere Else Entirely by Emily Andersen in our Gallery, and Nottingham Women’s Centre in our Vitrines.
• The event is free to attend with limited capacity.
• Booking is required.
• Please meet in the Bonington Foyer at 12.55 pm for a prompt start.
• The event will last up to an hour, within the gallery.