UP IN ARMS LIVE PERFORMANCE | SUNDAY 7 MAY
Coinciding with the Up in Arms exhibition, the artists Anna Maria Nabirye and Annie Saunders will present a live performance in DLWP’s auditorium.
Up in Arms, Residency at VBKÖ, 2019. Courtesy of the artists. Photography: Julia Gaisbacher
*Please be advised that the exhibition will be closed to the public from 10.30am-11.30am on Sunday 21 May
De La Warr Pavilion presents a major new multimedia commission by artists Anna Maria Nabirye and Annie Saunders, exploring friendship, anti-racism and feminism.
Removing the boundaries between process and outcome, artists Anna Maria Nabirye and Annie Saunders bring together social practice, visual art and performance in their interdisciplinary project, Up in Arms, to create meaningful dialogue amidst the complexity of interracial friendships.
Up in Arms is an ongoing collaboration initiated by Nabirye and Saunders in 2016. In each new context the artists start with a series of sessions in which they extend an invitation to Black women to bring a friend of a different race and together re-create and re-embody the iconic 1971 portrait of activists and friends Dorothy Pitman-Hughes and Gloria Steinem. This process becomes a ritual that opens up the space for transformative conversations around female friendship, feminism and anti-racism.
As part of their latest iteration of Up in Arms, commissioned by De La Warr Pavilion, Nabirye and Saunders have invited Black women with a friend of their choice from across the local area – Bexhill, Hastings, and St. Leonards – to participate. The resulting documentation will be incorporated into an expansive exhibition comprising photography, film and archival material in DLWP’s First floor gallery, and will be the most ambitious presentation of the project to date.
The Rooftop Foyer space will be transformed into a space for gathering, where visitors can engage in conversation, reflection and explore further reading and audio materials.
A new publication, conceived as a handbook for intersectional collaboration, is currently in development and due to be published in spring 2024. A rich compendium of images, conversations, archival material and special contributions will guide readers in exploring questions around friendship, anti-racism and feminism. Part art book, part field guide, the publication is a resource that will document techniques and methods applied in the social practice element of the project, providing readers with the tools for their own social circles and beyond.
As much as this book will serve as an archive, it will also, like the exhibition at DLWP and wider Up in Arms project, be a generative space for knowledge sharing with the potential to lead to new dialogues and intersectional collaborations.
This exhibition contains material related to the experience of racism.
A note from the artists:
We would like to acknowledge the recent passing of Dorothy Pitman Hughes, the long time activist and social justice pioneer whose work and life has been such an inspiration and beacon to us. We extend our thanks and thoughts to her family, and continue to celebrate and illuminate her in our work as we move forward.
UP IN ARMS: LIVE PERFORMANCE: Sunday 7 May, book tickets here.
Up in Arms: Live Performance is kindly supported by The Lipman-Miliband Trust.
PROGRAMMED EVENTS
What Sarah Read Next | SUNDAY 30 APRIL
Join us for readings and reflection led by Sarah Gwonyoma of WhatSarahReadNext on books from the 'Up In Arms' Library
STORIES UNTOLD | SUNDAY 14 MAY
Led by DLWP Holiday artist Hannah Collisson, this workshop invites participants to collaboratively explore identity and self-expression through storytelling, using the cut-up poetry technique and polaroid portrait photography.
PAINTING IDENTITY WORKSHOP | SUNDAY 26 MARCH
Led by artist Reem Acason, this painting workshop allows participants to explore their identity through portraiture with inspiration from personal objects and belongings.
IN THE PRESS
HASTINGS INDEPENDENT PRESS
Article and responses edited by Shannon Ghannam and Merlin Betts.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Anna Maria Nabirye is a multi-disciplinary artist and performer working across visual arts, performance, fiction, documentary, theatre, screen, social practice and fashion. Her focus is on amplifying the stories of marginalised peoples with an emphasis on Black Women in the western Diaspora through celebration and joy. Recently works include The Funnest Room In The House Afterword, commissioned for Whitstable Biennale 2022, lead actor in mixed reality installation Last Time I saw Snow, Typeone, London Film Festival (nominated for Best Immersive Art & XR award), voice of the Mountain in Gelato Balleto, for Georgina Starr and Hermès, Medea in a solo adaptation of Medea at Wilton’s Music Hall with The Faction. Nabirye co-directed and performed in Ruptures with Noor Afshan Mirza and Brad Butler (London Film Fest/Home/Delfina Foundation). Other collaborations with Mirza and Butler include Hold Your Ground (FVU), Deep State. Her own projects include Motherhoody (with Jess Mabel Jones/Albany), and One Prick At A Time (with Jess Mabel Jones/Kings College). Nabirye co-founded and runs Afri-Co-Lab, a creative community dreaming space in St. Leonards-on-Sea. Commissions and collaborations include The Royal Court, V&A, SBC, Brighton Museum, Guest Projects, Eggtooth, Home Live Art and DLWP. Acting credits include the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, The Almeida, The Gate, Film4, BBC1 and BBC2. Nabirye is also an educator and director and has worked and created programmes for Yale School of drama, Carnegie Mellon, National Theatre Institute, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, LAMDA, Half Moon YPT and London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Junior Artists.
Annie Saunders is a multidisciplinary creator and director of site-specific experiences, and has created award-winning multi-platform projects for major arts institutions including The Los Angeles Philharmonic, as well as site-specific projects in disused spaces set for demolition and experiential campaigns for multinational brands. Her site-specific audio piece Current won the Tribeca Festival’s Best Immersive Creative Nonfiction, and her installation The Home received an Honorary Mention in Sound Art from Ars Electronica, a D&AD Yellow Pencil (Creative Excellence; Spatial and Installation Design) and UK APA awards for Best Experiential Project and Best Use of Technology for Good. She is a member of the inaugural ONX Studio (NEW INC/Onassis Foundation), and an alumnus of the Devised Theater Working Group at the Public Theater. Saunders is the founder and artistic director of site-specific performance company Wilderness, and her experimental project The Wreck for Opera Omaha was called ‘ingenious…a persuasive expression of complex female feeling,’ by the Wall Street Journal.
CREDITS
Up in Arms has been developed through residencies, performances and live events at no.w.here, The Showroom and Artsadmin, London; Delfina Foundation, London; New Art Exchange, Nottingham; MANA Contemporary, Jersey City, USA; The International Women’s Film Festival, Dortmund; The Association of Austrian Women Artists, Vienna; and online for the WOW (Women of the World) Global 24 Festival and Hungry Eyes Festival, Giessen, Germany.
This iteration of Up in Arms, comprising an exhibition, performance and publication has been commissioned by the De La Warr Pavilion with additional support from Artsadmin.
Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and from Hastings Borough Council Arts and Culture Development match funding.
The forthcoming publication has been made possible with support from Dale Franzen and is powered by the Producer Hub (www.producerhub.org)
Produced by Artsadmin
Artsadmin creates the conditions for art to explore the spaces in-between. Our work and projects explore the areas between social and environmental justice, the hyper-local and the international.
@artsadm
https://www.artsadmin.co.uk/
Tooling up - Resources
Staying locally
There are plenty of welcoming and good value B&Bs & boutique hotels in Bexhill. The De La Warr Pavilion regularly uses the following :
Travel information
- By Rail
Direct trains go from London Victoria, Brighton and Ashford to Bexhill.
There are also trains from London Charing Cross, changing at St. Leonards Warrior Square and from London Bridge or Charing Cross going to Battle. Battle is only a short taxi journey away (15 mins approx).
Visit www.nationalrail.co.uk for up-to-date train travel information. - Taxis
Town Taxis: 01424 211 511
Parkhurst Taxis: 01424 733 456 - By Car
If driving from the London area:
Take the M25, then A21 to Hastings. Turn off at John‘s Cross and follow the signs to Bexhill.
OR
Take the A22 to Eastbourne, go across the Bishop roundabout to the A271 and follow the signs to Bexhill and the seafront. The De La Warr Pavilion is on the Marina.
From the Brighton area:
Follow the A27 out of Brighton until you arrive in Bexhill On Sea. - Parking
Please be aware the Rother District car park outside the De La Warr Pavilion operates paid parking until 7pm. After this time parking is free. There is also lmiited free car parking along the seafront.
Accessibility
Within the limits of this Grade One listed building, the De La Warr Pavilion strives to be fully accessible with a range of facilities to support your visit.
Assistance Dogs are permitted into the building.
Please contact the Box Office on 01424 229 111 to arrange a visit.
Facilities for disabled visitors
- Ramped access at the front of the building
- A low counter at the Box Office and Information Desk
- Disabled toilets on two floors
- A lift to all floors
- Accessible galleries on both floors
- An accessible Café
- Spaces for wheelchairs in the auditorium for seated events
- Ramped access in the auditorium for events during the day
- Ramped access into the Studio
- Two travel wheelchairs are available for use at the De La Warr Pavilion. To reserve, please call our box office and information desk on (01424) 229111 or ask a member of staff on arrival. The chairs are provided on a first come, first served basis and are intended for use inside the Pavilion. Please contact us for more information.
Facilities for blind or visually-impaired
- Large print season brochures
Facilities for the hard-of-hearing
- An T-Switch induction loop in some areas of the auditorium (please indicate when booking as this facility is not available on the balcony)
- British Sign Language interpretation tours of the building and exhibitions are available on request.