Event
The Ignorant Art School | 12 Hour Acting Up
A 12 Hour gathering of conversations, dancing, food, performance, reading, screenings, singing, storytelling and talks to collectively re-imagine art education by celebrating acts of self-knowledge in feminist and queer activism.
Saturday 1 February 2025
Cooper Gallery
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design,
13 Perth Road,
Dundee,
DD1 4HT
12 Hour Acting Up
1 February 2025
11am–11pm
Cooper Gallery in Dundee invite you to join our 12 Hour Acting Up and revitalise She Town’s much lauded spirit of heckling – the art and craft of speaking loud and proud to those who claim to be ‘in charge’.
Reverberating with the attitude, poise and pose of intersectional feminist and queer agitation and dissent, The Ignorant Art School’s Sit-in #4 Outside the Circle culminates with an international coalition of artists, activists, culture workers, educators, students, musicians, performers, writers, and feminist and LGBTQ+ communities in Scotland and from around the world.
Celebrating the socially embedded acts of self-knowledge emblematic of feminist and queer activism, 12 Hour Acting Up broadcasts the difficult yet profound truth of lived experience which feminist and queer activism courageously speaks to power.
Defiantly empowering the experiences of the oppressed and marginalised, 12 Hour Acting Up will channel feminist and queer ‘practices of knowing’ through a constellation of affective memories and critical reflections expressed as collective readings, sewing, singing, dancing, storytelling, talks, performances, street theatre, round table discussions, screenings and workshops.
Unfolding the possibilities of assembly, collective actions and spirited protest 12 Hour Acting Up will reveal, in all their radical complexity and zeal, the global legacies and future promise of feminist and queer acts of emancipatory pedagogy. But much more than this 12 Hour Acting Up desires to share Audre Lorde’s assertion of ‘the erotic’ as ‘the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.’
Contributors
Sam Ainsley (artist and educator)
Saoirse Amira Anis (artist)
Sutapa Biswas (artist)
Sheba Chhachhi (artist and photographer)
Phyllis Christopher (photographer)
Akwugo Emejulu (political sociologist)
Erica Eyres (artist and educator)
Erin Farley (storyteller and historian)
Karen Di Franco (curator)
Althea Greenan (curator)
Laura Guy (writer)
Haven for Artists (feminist collective)
Dima Hamdan (filmmaker)
Sabrina Henry (curator)
Shilpa T-Hyland (theatre director)
Amelia Jones (theorist and historian)
nussatari with naafi (artists)
Shola von Reinhold (writer)
Dagmar Schultz (filmmaker)
Cornelia Sollfrank (artist and researcher)
Tako Taal (artist)
Peter Tatchell (activist)
Womanifesto (artists collective)
Ajamu X (artist)
Booking
Free tickets can be booked via Eventbrite
Tickets guarantee food at lunch and dinner
However, tickets are non-essential and you can attend for the whole or part(s) of event
Attendee notes
- Attend the event in full or in part
- Arrive anytime during event
- If you would like your portrait taken by Ajamu X and Phyllis Christopher they request you bring/wear a black/dark top
Schedule
10.30am
Registration
MORNING
11am–12.45pm
Freedom Princess
'From Within Outward'
Collective Dance
Welcome by Sophia Yadong Hao
Announcement by MC (Freedom Princess)
Erin Farley
She Is A Problem Still
Storytelling
Fae Ross and Malachy McCrimmon
Queers of Color Statement of Purpose (USA, 1995)
Dyke Manifesto (Lesbian Avengers, USA, 1994)
Manifesto Readings
Tako Taal
"It's your f***ing talent they were after"
Reading
Amelia Jones
Queer Feminist Disorientations in Art and Performance
(Strategies for Survivance under Fascism)
Keynote
Haven for Artists/Dayna Ash
Courage
Film Screening
LUNCH
12.45–1.45pm
Phyllis Christopher and Ajamu X
Darkroom/Studio Intimacies: A Photographic Encounter with Phyllis Christopher and Ajamu X
Temporary Photography Studio
Womanifesto
WeMend
Collective Sewing
Unlearning Circle: Study Area
Exhibition Viewing
AFTERNOON
1.45–6pm
Sam Ainsley and Erica Eyres
Why Do You Want This Job?
In-conversation
Cara Murry
Women in the Year 2000 (Carolee Schneemann, USA, 1977)
Manifesto Reading
Karen Di Franco
On Readings
Talk
Sutapa Biswas, Althea Greenan and Sabrina Henry
'To whom do I owe the woman I’ve become?’
Roundtable
Coffee/Tea Break
Dima Hamdan
Blood Like Water (2023)
Film Screening
Peter Tatchell
Outrageous Activism
Keynote
Cornelia Sollfrank
The Mode is the Message, the Code is the Collective – Self-organisation as an Aesthetic Practice
Performative Talk
Sheba Chhachhi
Excerpts from Todo Bandhan (Break the Bind): Feminist Songs Compilation, 1985
Collective Listening
Shilpa T-Hyland
Together We Breathe, Together We Move
Workshop
(sign-up throughout the day)
Phyllis Christopher and Ajamu X
Darkroom/Studio Intimacies: A Photographic Encounter with Phyllis Christopher and Ajamu X
Temporary Photography Studio
Womanifesto
WeMend
Collective Sewing
Exhibition Viewing
Comfort Break
EVENING
6.15–8pm
Leyla Hussain
South Asian Feminist declaration (South Asia, 1989)
Manifesto Reading
Nicola Rubczak
Combahee River Collective Statement (USA, 1977)
Manifesto Reading
Audre Lorde
Uses of the Erotic
Collective Listening
Phyllis Christopher, Ajamu X, Laura Guy
Darkroom/Studio Intimacies: A Photographic Encounter with Phyllis Christopher and Ajamu X
In-conversation
DINNER
8–9pm
Unlearning Circle: Study Area
Exhibition Viewing
NIGHT
9–11pm
nussatari x naafi
utter / ance
Performance
Manuela De Los Rios
Manifesto of Romani Feminism (Asociación de Gitanas Feministas por la Diversidad (AGFD), Spain 2017)
Manifesto Reading
Shilpa T-Hyland
Impossibility Now! (Dean Spade, USA, 2013)
Manifesto Reading
Shola von Reinhold
Black Grottos
Performance
Dagmar Schultz
Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992
Film Screening
Ends
THROUGHOUT
Womanifesto
WeMend
Collective Sewing
Mistress of Ceremonies: Freedom Princess
Unlearning Circle: Study Area
Exhibition Viewing
Venue Info
The event is held at Cooper Gallery.
Cooper Gallery is located to the right side of the DJCAD buildings on Perth Road. The entrance is via double doors which face onto a car park.
The gallery is on two floors. Ground floor has ramped access. First floor is accessible by an internal lift and six steps with a handrail. Wheelchair access is via a stairclimber. Please email in advance if you require lift or stairclimber access.
During the event there attendees will be asked to travel short distances between locations within the art school.
First floor is also accessible via 24 steps. Two flights of 12 steps with handrails are separated by a landing.
Exhibition videos are subtitled and captioned in English. Seating is provided and/or additional seating available, please ask an invigilator.
Parking
Audiences can park on city campus directly outside Cooper Gallery by paying an appropriate fee via the RingGo app. Fees for non-permit holders are applicable Monday to Friday from 17:30 to 00:00 and Saturday and Sunday from 08:00 to 00:00.
Access Funds
A small access fund is available to support travel and access for BSL interpretation, costs for Childcare, Carers & Support Workers and other needs. The funds are distributed on a first come first served basis. Please be aware we may need to close the fund early if demand is high, so please get in touch at least two weeks' prior to event.
To access funds for travel please email [email protected] and let us know where you are travelling from within Scotland. We will book trains in advance for attendees and ticket collection references will be sent to you by email.
For all enquiries please email: [email protected]
Toilets
The ground floor has a wheelchair accessible toilet. The toilet is gender neutral. There is a baby changing table in the accessible toilet.
Interpretation
Large print versions of the event information will be available, please ask our Guides. If you require alternative formats for material please email in advance.
Refreshments
During the event refreshments will be provided as well as a lunch and evening meal. Food will be vegan/vegetarian. Alcoholic and non-alcoholic refreshments provided.
* Please inform us on any allergies by emailing [email protected]
For all enquires please email: [email protected]
Funding support
The Ignorant Art School Sit-in #4 at Cooper Gallery, DJCAD is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland and the Goethe-Institut Glasgow.
Cooper Gallery
[email protected]