#CareWithCourage
EXETER Herstory programme EXETER Library
Wednesday 30th March & Online
This programme will help you get the most out of EXETER Herstory Throughout the event we encourage you to engage in the national conversation online by using our festival hashtag #CareWithCourage across your preferred platform. In the following table, we have provided approximate timings of activity and happenings and the map, will guide you around Exeter Herstory event space. Across the Library building there is signage to help you find your way around the different spaces in the venue and our Exeter Herstory event staff and volunteers are on hand to answer any questions – so please feel free to approach them. Toilets are accessible from Level 2 of Exeter Library and the event is happening across two floors.
Enjoy and welcome to Exeter Herstory
Exeter Herstory
Bar Nova are running a festival bar on the ground floor and free tea and coffee will be available too!
#CareWithCourage
Time
Space
Event
Time
Space
Event
13.00 – 14.00
Level 2 Rougemont Room
Mothers on the Mic An open mic event designed to amplify maternal voices and herstories, this relaxed daytime show explores everything from mythology to domesticity and power. It promises the mother of all line ups with local mothers taking to the mic with songs, poetry and storytelling, all headlined by artist, mother and poet, Shagufta K Iqbal.
19:15 – 19:50
Level 2 Rougemont Room
Makaton Jukebox A relaxed live performance with Makaton signing of infectious classic pop by women who work and live with non-verbal individuals with learning disabilities. Come meet the women in the choir, their children and friends. Hear their stories and learn some signs.
19:50 – 20:05
Ground Floor Library Stage
Chains with Shagufta K Iqbal Award-winning writer Shagufta K Iqbal uses creative writing and the inspiring story of the Cradley Heath Chain Makers to examine community and collaborative working within Exeter. This exploration of the strength and collective spirit that can be found across unions and the creative scene combines poetry with recipes and postcards - finding ways to re-connect with those we have been separated from during the pandemic.
20:00 – 20:30
Level 2 Rougemont Room
Representation in the South West Join award-winning EDI (Equality, Diversity & Inclusion) Consultant, International Speaker & Instagram Influencer, Maia Thomas, together with Ngaio and Poet in the City board member Lennie Goodings for a panel discussion exploring improving representation in the South West.
*Trigger warning*: This event deals with some topics of infertility, miscarriage and neonatal death
14:00 – 15:30
Ground Floor Teen Area
16:00 – 17:30 19:00 – 20:00
19:10 – 19.40
Exeter Herstory
Café
Ground Floor Library Stage
Mapping the City Through Stories of Care: A Talking, Listening and Making Space Hidden beneath the surface of city life are acts of care and sharing that often go unseen but enable women to survive and thrive. In this friendly space, hosted by Dreadnought South West with Maddy Costa, the people and places behind that care will be celebrated through the making of hand-crafted medals. The medals will be displayed as part of a new map of Exeter: making visible a city that really cares about women. Join us for a cuppa, a chat and to make your own medal celebrating an act of care, given or received. Herstory Exeter Poets Hear new poems by Liv Torc, Shagufta K Iqbal and Fiona Benson - all specially commissioned for Herstory Exeter and inspired by the poets’ work with local communities as well as the British Library’s Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women’s Rights exhibition. Liv explores parallels between the lives of women during COVID and those living and fighting through the two World Wars; Shagufta connects the story of the 1910 Chainmaker’s strike with the experiences of freelance artists and mothers today; and Fiona takes on taboos around female bodies. The poets are joined in discussion with Chair of Virago Press and Poet in the City’s board of trustees Lennie Goodings, and a curator from the British Library who will also give an overview of the Unfinished Business exhibition.
#CareWithCourage
Time
Space
Event
Time
Space
Event
20:05 – 20:30
Level 2 Rougemont Room
Fiona Benson For this special poetry performance with live soundscapes, Fiona Benson reads new poems commissioned for Herstory. From a powerful, raw account of a pregnant woman forced to give up her baby for adoption in the 1960s, to a sequence that explores the history of gynaecological tools, each is inspired by women’s experiences of fertility, birth control and healthcare.
21:00 – 21:15
Ground Floor Library Stage
Beyond Face A library, a place where we might expect to be quiet, to read words from a page, inside our heads, to not speak out loud. Well, not on the 30th March. Four women, after two days’ creation, arrive, with only their voices and their words - and they have a lot to say. You might hear our noise, but do you really hear us? Beyond Face is a theatre company whose mission is to be at the forefront of providing opportunities for artists of the Global Majority to live, work and thrive in the South West theatre sector.
*Trigger warning*: Poem contains an account of rape and forced adoption, which some audiences may find upsetting. The following organisations offer support in these areas: rapecrisis.org.uk, familiesforchildren.org.uk
20:30 – 21:00
Ground Floor Library Stage
Bombshells with Liv Torc A city of silence. A city of noise. Two faces of a mirror, 78 years thick.
21:15 – 22:15
Ground Floor Library Stage
How different are we from our grandmothers and great grandmothers? How many more unexploded bombs exist in the creases of history ready to change our rights as women forever? Liv Torc’s Bombshells explores the parallels between the shifting lives of women during COVID and those living and fighting through the First and Second World Wars - asking what can we learn from our female ancestors and what advice would they give us on how to cope with being a woman today.
Founding member Ngaio will also be gracing the mic - a force to be reckoned with, this powerhouse of a performer can switch from a killer DJ set to heart-hitting spoken word, to delivering intricate jazz harmonies with a voice that could have stepped out of the 1940s. 21:15 – 22:15
Exeter Herstory
Booty Bass We’re going out on a high with Bristol based femxle and non binary DJ collective Booty Bass playing music that celebrates different cultures from across the world mixed with much loved UK sounds - afrobeats, latin, bashment, UK Funky, 90s, garage, grime, baile funk, trap, tribal, global, and most importantly, bass.
Level 2 Rougemont Room
Build Your Warrior: An Evening of Spoken Word Poetry Join a specially curated line-up of artists and poets as they celebrate feminists and feminism, explore personal empowerment and personal weakness, and ask how we can care for ourselves.
#CareWithCourage
Library MAps
LEVEL ONE (GROUND FLOOR) MAIN ENTRANCE
BAR
LIFT
LIBRARY STAGE
LEVEL TWO ROUGEMONT STAGE
LIFT
LEVEL 3 ENTRANCE
STAIRS
STAIRS
LEVEL 3 TOILETS
ROUGEMONT LOUNGE CAFE
Exeter Herstory
#CareWithCourage
Herstory is a partnership between Poet in the City, the British Library, Newcastle Libraries, and Libraries Unlimited Exeter. It is inspired by the British Library exhibition Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women’s Rights and is the latest project in Poet in the City and the British Library’s ongoing Collections in Verse collaboration.
Exeter Herstory
#CareWithCourage
For more information visit: www.poetinthecity.co.uk Follow us online: @PoetintheCityUK @BritishLibrary @ExeterLibrary #CareWithCourage