Category Archives: Archive

Women Live Bristol Poster

Women Live was a UK-wide women’s network which held festivals and networking events that showcased women’s talents across a range of arts including film, visual art, theatre and music in the early 1980s. There was also discussions about topics such as sexuality, work and media representation.

Women Live poster with details of a series of creative activities including music, film, theatre, art and discussions

Women Live Bristol Poster 1982

Women Live were remarkably similar to Ladyfests, the punk feminist festival started in Olympia in the USA in 2000. Ladyfests similarly combine performance, discussion and empowerment initiatives, but also provide a template for organising feminist cultural events in different geographical locations.

Poster with details of activities at the Edinburgh Spring Fling

Women Live Edinburgh 1985

Women Live events happened in Bristol, Edinburgh, Tyneside and London – although may have happened in other places too. If you know of any cities that held Women Live events, or have any archive material relating to such events, please get in touch so we can gain a more accurate picture of when and where Women Live took place, and who performed at them.

There is an extensive archive of Women Live Edinburgh (1981-1985) in The Glasgow Women’s Library which includes posters, leaflets, programmes, badges and newspaper cuttings regarding each of the festivals and other events. There is also correspondence relating to sponsorship, membership etc, several drafts and copies of the constitution, minutes of meetings, agendas and newsletters, photographs of events and performers as well as biographies of certain performers and information from similar groups or movements.

Women Live events in London had a strong musical programme, and performers such as The Guest Stars, Maggie Nicols, Irene Schweitzer, Julie Tippetts, Jans Ponsford Quintet, Jam Today and Amazulu played. There were also performances from dance troupe Sheer Ebony and theatre group Monstrous Regiment.

You can read reviews of Women Live 1982 published in Spare Rib on the Women’s Liberation Music Archive here and here, including a report on the music workshop held at the Watershed in Bristol:

‘The jam session at the end of the day was loud, lively and out of control. Order was restored when the workshop organisers switched off the power supply to make themselves heard. The result was somewhat more musical as they convinced everyone to play in the same key. Instant musical competence no; but the pleasure and confidence gained made the day a great success.’

As a political movement feminism attaches itself to many different (and sometimes conflicting) causes. The Women’s Liberation Movement questioned all aspects of life as the poster above demonstrates: ‘alcoholism is a feminist issue’.

There are historical antecedents for women activists thinking these two issues together. Many suffrage women were involved in the temperance movement of the late 19th century, for example.

Feminist political imagery ranges from the violent…

…to the non-violent (and everything inbetween…)

As for the history of the Feminist Archive itself, here is one of the early posters from when the archive was stored in Bath.

Feminist and Women’s Archives in the UK: Profile No. 1 – Black Cultural Archives

Leave a reply

Have you ever felt confused about where to go to research feminist and women’s history in the UK? Like you had a feeling there are specialist libraries and archives, but you aren’t sure which ones to go to, or when to go because opening hours can be limited?

Its true that many archives and libraries are in a precarious position, largely due to a lack of funds to support this crucial part of the UK’s cultural heritage. This often means that opening hours can be limited, or access restricted. The Women’s Library in London is currently moving to LSE and of course our own archive is still adjusting to our move to Bristol University – and that was almost four years ago!

In this new feature on the Feminist Archive South website, we have contacted curators and archivists based at the main feminist archives in the UK, or in other specialist archives which have prominent collections relating women’s activism.

We want to get a picture of the current archive/ library landscape, and learn about the challenges these institutions are facing, and what hopes they have for the future.

The first person to get back to us was Hannah Ishmael, Assistant Archivist at the Black Cultural Archives in London. Thanks Hannah for getting the ball rolling!

1. What is the name of your collection, and where is it based?

Black Cultural Archives, based at 1 Othello Close, Kennington. We will be moving to Windrush Square, Brixton in 2014.

Front cover of Fowaad, the newsletter of OWAAD. Please credit: Ref. DADZIE/1/8/1 (c) Stella Dadzie, available at Black Cultural Archives.

2. If I wanted to access the collection, what would I need to do (when is it open, etc)?

We are open every Wednesday, from 10:00-16:30, by appointment. Please email the reading room, [email protected] for more information.

3. What type of things are collected in the BCA related to the black women’s movement, and black women from 19th Century to the present day?

We have a number of collections relating to the Black women’s movement. One of the most used collections is the oral histories of the Black women’s movement from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The collection contains 36 interviews with women from a range of backgrounds, but who were active in the Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent (OWAAD) that was an umbrella organisation for a number of other Black women’s groups.

We also have the papers of Stella Dadzie, co-author of The Heart of the Race, relating to her work with OWAAD and her student activities; a small collection of the papers of Suzanne Scafe, another co-author of the Heart of the Race, and the papers of Jan Mckenley another key activist.

Finally, we have the papers of the Runnymede Trust, a race relations think tank which contains a number of research files relating to issues facing ethnic minorities, and women.

4. Do you have a favourite part of the collection, and why?

Although I find all of the collections fascinating, I do enjoy listening to the oral histories. They offer a rare chance to listen to women exploring their identity and history, and to give a more human voice to the struggles of women.

Poster for an exhibition about images of black women in Feb 1986

Ephemera/36/53 (c) Black Cultural Archives

5. What are the plans for the collection in the future?

We are continuing to collect a wide variety of material, to build our collections and to be able to fully present the contributions Black people have made to the culture, society and heritage of the UK.

6. Anything else you want to say about your activities?

The opening exhibition for Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, will be focusing on the Black women’s movement, and taking the book ‘The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain’ (1985) as the inspiration.

***

If you are part of an archive, library or work in an archive relating to women’s history and want to be featured on this website, please get in touch. You can answer the six questions above, and please send us 1-2 photos as illustration.

The secret life of the archive

Leave a reply

Ever wanted to know about the secret life of the Feminist Archive South? About where all the information that has been lovingly collected is kept?

These photos were taken by our archive detective in Special Collections, and allow us to see part of the story.

The material in the Feminist Archive South are kept in storage a few miles away from Special Collections at Bristol University.

If you want to view items in the collection you need to order them, and they can take a week to be retrieved from storage.

While we want to make the Feminist Archive South as accessible as possible, you can see there are limitations on how quickly we can get the material.

In the next few months we will work hard at getting as much of the catalogue online so it will be easier for people to order items and plan their visit.

Even though the FAS moved to Bristol University in 2009, like moving house, transitions can be stressful and take a long time (particularly if you have loads of stuff!)

We are starting to make progress, and the recent HLF grant provides us with vital resources to do this work.

In the meantime, enjoy these photos!

What’s in the Archive?

Leave a reply

In the next 8 months and beyond, we will be using this blog to showcase the FAS collections that have been fairly underused since we moved to Special Collections at Bristol University in 2009.

At the moment we are looking through the collections in order to select material for the first workshop that will take place at MShed on Tuesday, 16 April from 7-9.30pm.

As Ellen’s archives have been the inspiration for this project, we couldn’t resist sharing this interview with her from Bristol University’s magazine, Nonesuch in 2002. The article also includes some of the imagery from the archive.

Revealing Stories – OutStories Exhibition

Leave a reply

Its the last week you can see the Bristol-based LGBT history group Outstories’ exhibition Revealing Stories, which is being displayed at MShed.

Revealing Stories is part of LGBT history month and tells the (sometimes hidden) histories of LGBT people and communities in Bristol and the South West.

It also includes a number of artefacts from the Feminist Archive South, such as the Bristol Lesbian Line Banner below, and copies of Move, the local lesbian publication from the 1970s.

The exhibition is a fantastic achievement and a valuable tool to educate people who may not know about the experience of LGBT people.

It is moving and lovingly constructed, and will no doubt help contribute to the gradual de-stigmatisation of LGBT people in Bristol, and beyond. Well done Outstories!

Go see it before it is gone!

Sistershow Revisited

Leave a reply

In 2010-2011 the Heritage Lottery Funded Sistershow Revisited: Feminism in Bristol, 1973-1975.

The project used the antics of Sistershow, an anarchic theatre and arts troupe to tell the history of feminism in Bristol during 1973-1975.

There is extensive documentation of the project, which produced a three week exhibition at Centrespace Gallery, a book and a series of cultural events, on the blog. It includes photos, audio and film and is well worth a look!

The exhibition catalogue is still available from HammerOn Press.

The book and exhibition was designed by Jan Martin, who also made the fetching banner for this site.

Ellen Malos talks about her archives

Leave a reply

Its hard to catch up with Ellen sometimes, as she spends half of the year outside of the UK, driven by her passion for travel (or perhaps sunny weather!)

At the moment she is back in Bristol, and she is excited about our Heritage Lottery project which in the next 8 months will organise her archives, making them available for the public to learn from and enjoy.

In this audio extract Ellen talks about the project and what we can expect to find in her vast collections.