Storying food: gendered, racialised and classed politics and possibilities

This November Sheila & Sue are part of an online symposium for reflection on the politics and possibilities of gender, class and race in storying food.

About this event

The University of Sussex Business School and the Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies (in the School of Media, Arts and Humanities), in conjunction with Brighton and Sussex Universities Food Network present

An Online Symposium: Storying food: gendered, racialised and classed politics and possibilities

11.30 to 17.30 GMT Wednesday 17th and 13.30 - 16.30 GMT approx. Thursday 18th November 2021 (timings for the work-in-progress session TBC)

Organising Committee: Barbora Adlerova, Cardiff University, Naaz Rashid, University of Sussex, Ruth Segal, University of Sussex, Elaine Swan, University of Sussex and Karen Wilkes, Birmingham City University 

Part of the activities of the FoodSEqual UKRI project

Symposium

Day One Wednesday 17th November: Keynotes and group discussions

Keynotes by - Professor Beth Dixon, Dr Sukhmani Khorana and Dr. Tammara Soma

Day Two Thursday 18th November: Workshop and Panel

Storying food panel - scholar-activists discuss the intersections of storytelling about food in very different domains and media

• Dr Anna Sulan Masing, Dr Olivia Sheringham and Dr Helen Taylor, and Sheila Ghelani and Sue Palmer

If you would like to attend the Symposium, please book via eventbrite by November 12th 2021.

Common Salt salt pile and assorted objects in close-up, photographed by John Hunter

BBC Future, the lost index series article by Kamala Thiagarajan

In August 2021 Sheila & Sue were interviewed by journalist Kamala Thiagarajan for a BBC Future, the lost index series article. The piece written by Kamala explores the story of the infamous Customs hedge seeded across india by the East India Company in the 1800s - one of the many intertwining stories they tell in their work Common Salt.

You can read the article by Kamala (The mysterious disappearance of the world's longest shrubbery) HERE.

Exeter at Sea - Outside the Box commission

Sheila and Sue have been making a new piece of work called Exeter at Sea. The commission is from Outside The Box at Exeter University and takes place next weekend. The work will feed into Atmospheric Forces (the work they are also currently making at University of Reading). Further details below:

Exeter at Sea

Southernhay Gardens, Exeter

Saturday 7 & Sunday 8 August 2021

1pm and 2pm each day

For up to 15 people per sharing

The Exeter  was an East India Company ship that made 8 voyages from the UK to Bengal and China via St Helena around southern Africa, and back. Join artists Sheila Ghelani and Sue Palmer as they bring these connections back to the city, mapping the histories of elsewhere into Southernhay Gardens through a local / international heritage tour that lasts around 30 minutes.

Book HERE

Places are limited. If you cannot attend after booking a place, it is important that you cancel your ticket so someone else can take your place. 

Please dress for the weather accordingly. If there is heavy rain forecast please check your email for information and updates.

Accessibility:

For the presentation of Exeter at Sea, audience will be standing, moving from place to place and sitting on the ground outdoors for around 30 minutes. Please get in touch if this is an issue for you and we can help.

Wheeled access onto the grass area is over a small lip at the edge of Southernhay Gardens (see meeting point directions).

Co-creation podcast resource

Sheila is part of a podcast series considering what co-creation is. The series was produced to accompany a report authored by Battersea Arts Centre & Heart of Glass for Arts Council England.

Further details below:

Discover what co-creation means, how it can help you actively listen to and collaborate with the local community and form new partnerships as well as helpful insight on putting it into practice.

Explore the Heart of Glass and Battersea Arts Centre report, appendices and three podcasts with artists, producers, and collaborators HERE

Podcast

Episode 1 - Artists - Featuring Sheila Ghelani, Marjorie H. Morgan and Conrad Murray 

Episode 2 - Collaborators - Featuring Ant Shea, Arthur Britney and Halima Malek 

Episode 3 - Producers - Featuring Debbie Chan, Alan Lane and Chantelle Williams 

Tea cup saucer produced as part of Getting to Know You by Sheila Ghelani & Heart of Glass in 2017

Sheila is part of the team that wins Wellcome Trust’s next Hub Award!

Sheila is really pleased to share the news that Land Body Ecologies (which Sheila is part of) is the next recipient of the Wellcome Trust’s renowned Hub Award. The grant provides a dynamic research space in the Wellcome Collection building at the heart of London, where people with different expertise can collaborate on projects exploring health, life and art. 

The Land Body Ecologies Research Group, initiated by Invisible Flock, will undertake a two-year research project that brings together a team of human rights activists, mental health researchers, scientists, and artists to research the phenomenon of solastalgia. A developing field in global health, solastalgia is defined as the emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change, or commonly described as “the feeling of homesickness while you are still at home.” Through the lens of solastalgia, the project aims to understand the lived experiences of land trauma on marginalised and indigenous communities.

The research is anchored within communities and the project will bring to life a live network of hubs in Northern Finland, Kenya, Uganda, India, as well as central London. These hubs will support the incorporation of local knowledge, perspectives, and lived experiences in the research, which is vital as the team aims to better understand the traumas endured when the lands and ecosystems suffer.

The Land Body Ecologies Research Group is the fourth collaborative residency group in Wellcome Collection’s Hub since 2014. The project will commence in October 2021.

LBE is Dr Ayesha Ahmad, Dr Outi Autti, Samrawit Gougsa (Minority Rights Group International), Kaisa Kerätär (Waria), Invisible Flock , Quicksand, Ogiek Peoples’ Development Project and Sheila.

Join Sheila, Sue & guests online this Thursday as they explore 'Atmospheric Forces'

Atmospheric Forces - a beginning

Thursday 10th June

2pm - 3.15pm (online)

Join artists Sheila Ghelani and Sue Palmer and guests, as they respond to the question 'Atmospheric Forces - what does this mean to you?’

Topics that they’re exploring:

• The weather system of a person. The weather system of a planet.

• The air, global exchange, trade winds, climate, gravity, circulation

• Colonialism and empire

• Coverings, layers, care

Guest presenters:

• Jane Trowell - Art educator, curator and environmental justice activist, Jane works with arts-activist research organisation Platform

• Deepa Bhasthi - Writer and Farmer (joining from India)

• Andrew Charlton-Perez - Associate Professor in the Department of Meteorology, Reading University,

• Harshavardhan Bhat - PhD Researcher with the Monsoon Assemblages project at the University of Westminster (joining from India)

• Marlene Creates - Environmental artist who lives and works in a 6-acre patch of old-growth Boreal forest on the island of Newfoundland, off the Atlantic coast of Canada (joining from Newfoundland).

• Ollie Douglas - Curator at MERL Collections, Reading University (pre-recorded video)

Sheila and Sue are part of 'Work in Progress', a joint project between the University of Reading's Department of Film, Theatre and Television, and Reading's cultural venue, South Street theatre. The project is funded by Arts Council England.

This informal online event marks Sheila and Sue’s first in-public exploration of their new research focus, following a number of conversations with Reading-based researchers across the University.

The artist duo collaborated on the work Common Salt which was hosted at The MERL in January 2020.

In Atmospheric Forces they continue to open up the themes of nature, colonialism, memory and connectivity and will present their new piece as a work in progress in the Autumn.

This event welcomes attendees who have an interest in the topics, coming from any research background. It will be hosted on Zoom; to register please use this link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEvceGspz4vHty8yg907xXqehROoYBVq0eq

 After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Green Guide for the United Kingdom contributor

Sheila is really happy to be one of the contributors to the Green Guide for the United Kingdom, the 8th in the series Creative Responses to Sustainability. The UK version of the Guide was put together by Invisible Flock with ASEF. See the Press Release below for further info:

New publication interrogating how artists can challenge the immense complexities of our time released

The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) has collaborated with Yorkshire based interactive arts studio Invisible Flock to produce the UK’s first Green Guide, 8th in the series of Creative Responses to Sustainability.

Creative Responses to Sustainability: UK Green Guide uniquely presents a patchwork of stories asking how creative practices can challenge dominant discourse on the climate crisis.

The publication is part of a series published by ASEF’s arts website culture360.ASEF.org since 2015. Previous iterations focused on Spain, Portugal, Indonesia, Korea, Australia and Singapore. This new version brings together creative responses, articles and a series of over 30 conversations with artists, collectives and organisations from across the UK.

All of those featured have artistic practices grounded in sustainable, ecological, environmental and/or climate-based understandings.

The publication speaks to Amitav Ghosh’s quote from The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable where he suggested that “When future generations look back upon the Great Derangement they will certainly blame the leaders and politicians of this time for their failure to address the climate crisis. But they may well hold artists and writers to be equally culpable – for the imagining of possibilities is not after all, the job of politicians and bureaucrats.”

In the role of both researcher and designer Invisible Flock have focussed on unravelling a breadth of approaches to explore the challenges we all face, guided by their own environmentally focussed practice.

Victoria Pratt, Creative Director of Invisible Flock describes how “The guide is not an A-Z of everyone making this type of work in the UK, a solution or a report but is instead a snapshot, a collection of stories and practices across a wide geographical area of the UK, within a moment in time.

We hope this is just the beginning of these conversations, that the publication can provoke ongoing discussion and a shared collection of ideas that can be taken in many new directions.”

Download the Green Guide for the United Kingdom HERE

Rambles with Nature Kits - Norfolk & Norwich Festival

In the middle of last year, Sheila was delighted to be commissioned by Norfolk & Norwich Festival to translate a version of her 2013 body of work Rambles with Nature into a kit for their 2021 season (17-30 May).

The kit is one of four ‘Experience Packs’ that the festival is making available to audience members.

Drawing together some of the tips and tools that she has used over the years - with instructions, Sheila has put together 100 kits only!

Each one comes carefully presented in a pouch and contains a letter from Sheila, some rambling rules, a notebook and pencil, and 6 tools designed to encourage attentive looking, listening and reflection on nature – including a pocket Claude Glass (aka black mirror).

Packs are available to buy on NNF’s website HERE Pay what you can: Free, £5, £10, £15, £20, £25

Image shows one side of a poster/map that is in each kit

Health, Activism and Arts Practice Seminar

On Thursday 25 March Sheila is speaking in Health, Activism and Arts Practice a free online seminar presented by Tate Liverpool in partnership with Birmingham School of Art.

The seminar is part of the Global Art Futures series focusing on the critical issues facing art, artists and the art world in the wake of the global pandemic taking place on 4 March, 25 March and 27 May 2021.

Further details below and HERE

Thursday 25 March

19.00–20.30

Seminar 2: Health, Activism and Arts Practice

This seminar features artist Sheila Ghelani, and Minna Tarkka (Artistic Director of m-cult in Finland). This seminar will question what are the most urgent issues of our time and how they can be addressed through creative and cultural forms. It will also analyse the role of the socially engaged artist working with and in communities for active social change.

Sheila Ghelani will speak about the 'why, where, who and how' of her work in relation to heath and wellbeing; why she makes work, where her work happens, who she makes work with and the collaborative methods she employs. She will also discuss her own checklist of care.

Minna Tarkka will speak about m-cult's collaborative programme in Helsinki's Maunula neighbourhood, which they have reframed to focus on long-term processes aiming at building local common practices and resources. Tarkka will also discuss a new project that focuses on economies of care.

Our two speakers will each present a short talk, followed by a discussion chaired by Ailbhe Murphy, Artist and Director of Create Ireland.

Monsoonal Multiplicities Digital Residency

During March 2021, Sheila is resident artist in Monsoonal Multiplicities - a virtual exhibition - alongside Feedback Theatre and Naiza Khan. All three artists will be applying their research practices to the question ‘How is London a Monsoonal City?’ The process will be documented by the artists themselves and Hydar Dewachi, a filmmaker, and result in four short videos and posts for the Monsoon Assemblages Instagram feed.

A Programme of Events will also accompany the exhibition.

Click HERE for further information.

Monsoonal Multiplicities is an exhibition of work arising from a five-year engagement with the monsoon in India, Bangladesh, London and Myanmar by the European Research Council funded project, Monsoon Assemblages. It offers visitors a virtual experience of the monsoon by following stories of entangled beings, energies, infrastructures, life-worlds, matters, technologies and knowledge practices and their mobilisation by colonial and neo-colonial agendas.

City at night

Performance in an Age of Precarity: Book Launch

To coincide with the publication of their first anthology of essays on contemporary performance, Andy Field and Maddy Costa bring together a collection of the artists they write about in the book to talk about performances they themselves have seen and loved in the past decade.

Featuring Alexandrina Hemsley, Augusto Corrieri, Ellice Stevens (Breach Theatre), Jemima Yong, Rachel Mars, Rachel Porter (Figs in Wigs), Sheila Ghelani and Tim Crouch.

This event will be not just a book launch but a celebration of the effect live performance has on us, and continues to have, even when theatres are closed.

Published on 11 February 2021, Performance in an Age of Precarity is a new anthology of 40 short essays, each on the work of a different artist, through which Andy and Maddy sketch a map of the contemporary performance landscape in the UK in the period between the financial crisis of 2008 and the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020.

“This magical book is a love letter to the artists whose imagination and cleverness transport us and unite us, and to the beauty and fragility of their performance. When I read it I feel like I am constantly on the joyful edge of falling in love, trying so hard to keep hold of the feelings evoked. A very precious book in our precarious times.”

Vicky Featherstone, artistic director, Royal Court

Conversations Over A Brew: Season 1, Episode 3

Listen to Sheila chatting with artist Claire Weetman as part of the Heart of Glass Podcast series Conversations Over A Brew.

Further details below:

Conversations Over A Brew: Season 1, Episode 3

15th Dec 2020

An intimate chat (recorded over a brew) between artists Claire Weetman and Sheila Ghelani, both long term Heart of Glass collaborators.

Claire is a founding steering group member of Heart of Glass, and has been with us since the very beginning. Currently she is working with us on a project with refugee and asylum seeking women. Sheila is a frequent collaborator and all round good egg, she has been working with us on a project with young people from St Helens Carers Centre.

In their warm conversation the artists explore the parallels between their work and, what it means to be an artist working in a community setting. They talk about, the challenges and setbacks of working through a pandemic and whether art and its ‘weird magic’ can or should change the world.

Before they chatted, Sheila and Claire mailed out packages to each other. Both artists had used care packages as a way to connect with the groups during the pandemic (scroll down to read more). We listen as they unwrap their packages and talk about the objects inside - how they chose them, their symbolism and meaning and their hopes for how they might offer a moment of care and reflection to the individuals who received them. 

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE

(Shout out to the amazing volunteers and organisations who supported them through the process including St Helens Carers Centre, Refugee Women Connect).