The Truncheon and the Speculum

As part of the 2016 Liverpool Biennial, artists Sarah Browne and Jesse Jones will present a live video broadcast from News from Nowhere, a radical community bookshop in Liverpool. CCA are pleased to be a satellite venue for the event and will be live-streaming it from 7:30pm on July 21st.

This broadcast explores historic state violence enacted through gynaecological means. Featuring material culture historian Dr. Lisa Godson and self-identified “cyborg witch” Klau Kinky of Catalan collective GynePunk, this event identifies the Contagious Diseases Acts of the 1860s as a key moment in the legislation of state violence against women in Ireland and the UK.

With this event, the artists and their guests propose a supplanting of the role of the state-sanctioned broadcast into domestic spaces. The online audience is invited to discuss and challenge the terrestrial illegalities of reproductive rights for women.

In the spirit of GynePunk’s bio-hacking we will be 3D printing speculums on the night for audience members, in partnership with the FabLab Derry. The speculum design was a gift to GynePunk from Urs Gaudenz (Gaudi).

If you can’t make it in to CCA, you can watch the broadcast on YouTube here, and also join in the conversation here on Facebook, or via Twitter and Google+ using the hashtag #pparchive.

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The Truncheon and the Speculum is part of In the Shadow of the State, a co-commission of Artangel and Create Ireland; also supported by ART: 2016, the Arts Council’s programme as part of Ireland 2016, the centenary of the Easter Rising in the Republic of Ireland, Dublin City Council and Heart of Glass (St. Helen’s).

Find out more:
http://www.create-ireland.ie/in-the-shadow-of-the-state
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https://www.artangel.org.uk/project/in-the-shadow-of-the-state/?sb=liverpool-biennial#liverpool-biennial
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http://www.biennial.com/2016/exhibition/artists/sarah-browne-and-jesse-jones