I WANT YOU TO SPEAK TO ME URGENTLY!

Guest Speakers

Lorraine Leeson is a visual artist whose research focuses on the role of art in social and environmental change through bringing community-based knowledge into the public domain. Early work included photo-murals, posters, video and exhibition for the health campaigns and the Docklands Community Poster Project in the1980s. In subsequent decades work with East London communities addressed the impact of change in the urban environment on quality of life and cultural identity. Recent work has involved communities in addressing environmental concerns.

Jasmina Cibic works in film, sculpture, performance and installation to explore ‘soft power’ – how political rhetoric is deployed through art and architecture, particularly examining how cultural production is used by the state to communicate certain principles and aspirations. Through unfolding the complex entanglements of art, gender and state power, the artist encourages viewers to consider the strategies employed in the construction of national culture. Gathering together symbols and iconographies, Cibic’s projects present a synthesis of gesture, stagecraft and re-enactment.

Sharon Kivland is an artist and writer living in Brittany and working in London. She was Reader in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University and Research Associate at the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research in London. She has exhibited internationally since 1979 and her work was represented by Kaimer in Düsseldorf. She was a commissioning editor for the journal EROS, and now is editor and publisher of her own small press MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE. In 2023 she became Visiting Professor at Kingston University, London.

Convened by the School of Arts and Humanities students and Dr Shehnaz Suterwalla. Presentations will be followed by audience Q&A.