Exploring solidarity between women and the meeting point of the domestic and the political — they’re inviting womxn to join them for a lunchtime film screening, performance, and conversation over tea and cake with Welsh artist Aisha Ajnabi/Umulkhayr Mohamed.
The Invite:
Please join them for the screening of “Women of the Rhondda” — a tender documentary, featuring four women, reflecting on the gruelling Welsh Miners’ strikes of the 20s and 30s and their impact on home life.
Alongside this work, Umulkhayr will share “OF THE ________________BY ASSOCIATION” a playful new video work and performance as a response, reflecting on the new legacies of housewives and the existence of hierarchies in liberation movements.
Afterward, they will invite the audience to share thoughts and take part in a conversation about both works, and think about strike action through the years from the lens of the home and the domestic. Along the way, they will touch on the miners’ strikes, Liverpool Dockers’ strikes in the 90s, and strike action taking place today.
Head along and join in the conversation! This event will take place in the Bluecoat’s Performance Space, from 12:00 – 1:30 pm. Tickets are free, but please book on Eventbrite so they know to expect you.
If you are traveling from Sefton, they can reimburse your travel expenses. Please email faye@ruleofthrees.co.uk to arrange this, or to let us know if you have any access requirements they need to cater for on the day to host you comfortably.
About The Event:
Rule of Threes Arts was invited by the feminist film archive, Cinenova, to host artist, writer and curator Umulkhayr Mohamed for an event, as part of “The Work We Share” — a national public programme of newly digitised films from the Cinenova collection, addressing representations of gender, race, sexuality, health and community.
Umulkhayr Mohammed was invited by Cinenova to respond to the newly digitised film “The Women of the Rhondda” (1972) by Esther Ronay, Mary Kelly, Mary Capps, Humphrey Trevelyan, Margaret Dickinson, Brigid Seagrave & Susan Shapiro.
In response to the work, Umulkhayr has produced a playful and layered commission bringing together film and performance: “OF THE __________________BY ASSOCIATION” reflecting on contemporary legacies of housewives and the existence of oppressive hierarchies in liberatory movements.
Umulkhayr Mohamed is a Welsh Somali artist, writer, curator, researcher and educator who also produces work under the alias, Aisha Ajnabi, their ‘art other’.
Her artistic practice involves primarily artist moving image, installation and performance work that explores the tension present between enjoying the act of wandering between emancipatory temporalities and a functional need to position oneself in the now.
Their art is the place where they are able to forego pretences and hierarchies, replacing them with solidarity and liberation, a way for them to contribute to doing the work of eroding the borders between beings to reveal the wholeness that lies beneath.
About The Works:
“The Women of the Rhondda” (1972) by Esther Ronay, Mary Kelly, Mary Capps, Humphrey Trevelyan, Margaret Dickinson, Brigid Seagrave & Susan Shapiro – WOMEN OF THE RHONDDA turns much-needed attention to the role played by women in the gruelling Welsh Miners’ Strikes of the 20s and 30s
“OF THE __________________BY ASSOCIATION” (2023) is a multi-medium devotional piece that meditates on the contemporary legacies of working class housewives, as well as the sisters and daughters of miners needs were sidelined in miner’s strikes; and the toil this takes on the conditioning of being ‘house proud’ when going without the resources to support your family and calls you to consider how oppressive hierarchies are maintained even in liberatory movements.