SHaME is collaborating with the V&A and Photoworks to create a programme of events in response to artist Laia Abril’s new exhibition at the Copeland Gallery, A History of Misogyny, Chapter Two: On Rape and Institutional Failure.
In this exhibition, Laia Abril has created a visual history of misogyny spanning over 2000 years – focusing on the pervasion of rape in society – presented through written testimonies, historical archives, popular and traditional beliefs and photographs.
Abril was inspired to create On Rape and Institutional Failure by the ‘Wolf Pack’, a high-profile legal case in Pamplona, northern Spain, in 2016, that involved the gang rape of an 18-year-old woman by five men and the victim’s subsequent public shaming. The exhibition, and accompanying book, subvert the victim-blaming narrative, and instead examine the complicity of law enforcement, healthcare services and religious groups in protecting perpetrators and in cultivating the pervasiveness of ‘rape culture’.
Further information on the work can be found on Abril’s website here.
For further details on the exhibition see the following link:
The full programme of events around the exhibition is as follows:
Wednesday 16 Nov
18:30 until 20:30 – Laia Abril in conversation with Professor Joanna Bourke
In conversation with the artist, Joanna Bourke will be discussing the themes of the exibition and SHaME’s research at the Copeland Gallery on November 16th. This event will be a reflection on how the work challenges the gender-based stereotypes and myths which perpetuate rape culture and normalise sexual violence across different cultural, social and political contexts globally. Copies of Laia Abril’s book and Joanna Bourke’s most recent book, Disgrace: Global Reflections on Sexual Violence, will be available for purchase on the night.
To register please RSVP via email to parasolwomenphoto@vam.ac.uk
Wednesday 23rd Nov
10:00 – 11.30 – Visualising Violence; artist presentations with Nieves Mingueza and Lina Geoushy (A partnership with UAL’s Visible Justice programme)
Join Max Houghton, Course leader in MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at LCC as she leads a conversation with artists Lina Geoushy and Nieves Mingueza, highlighting their long term works exploring violence against women. Against the back drop of Laia Abril’s urgent work on the subject of sexual violence and institutional failure at the Copeland Gallery in Peckham, Geoushy and Mingueza will address recurring themes of anonymity, safety, censorship and silence. Both artists, award-winning recent graduates from the course at London College of Communication, will further consider the need to incorporate self-care as part of their practice.
To register please RSVP via email to parasolwomenphoto@vam.ac.uk
15:00 – 17:00 Crafting Activism
The SHaME team hosts a zine workshop aimed at uncovering the historical uses of zines within anti-violence movements and providing a supportive space to create your own radical art in zine form. Zines have long been used by survivors of sexual violence to communicate their experiences, build community, and enact resistance. Join SHaME’s Allison McKibban for a brief history of zines in anti-violence movements, before creating, alongside Illustrator Erin Aniker, your own zine to take home.
Click here further information on this event and here to register.
18:30 – 20:30 Tanaka Mhishi book launch and Q&A
Join SHaME’s Dr George Severs as he interviews Tanaka Mhishi, author of ‘Sons and Others: On Loving Male Survivors’, a new introduction to the place of male survivors of sexual violence in discourses around rape culture. Sons and Others is a memoir of male survivor relationships, offering readers a glimpse into the lives of the one in six men living in Britain who have experienced sexual violence, and how the legacy of that violence shapes them as fathers, sons, partners and friends. Pushing back against an adversarial narrative of male vs female survivors, Sons and Others is an acknowledgement of the deeply intertwined personal relationships between all survivors, and offers a vision of a future that delivers justice and fulfilment for us all.
For further information on this event click here.
To register please RSVP via email to parasolwomenphoto@vam.ac.uk
Registration details
To register for any of these events (except the Zine workshop), please RSVP via email to parasolwomenphoto@vam.ac.uk
Age Guidance: 18 yrs +
FREE – but please register in advance
A History of Misogyny, Chapter two: On Rape and Institutional Failure by Laia Abril will be on display from 10 – 27 November 2022 at Copeland Gallery, Peckham, presented by the V&A and Photoworks, as part of the V&A Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project.