Dr George Severs will be interviewing Tanaka Mhishi, Associate Fellow of SHaME and author of Sons and Others: On Loving Male Survivors, on 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 fulfillment for us all.
This event is organised in association with Laia Abril’s new exhibition A History of Misogyny, Chapter two: On Rape and Institutional Failure which 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. Further details can be found here.
Registration details
Age Guidance: 18 yrs +
FREE – but please register in advance
To register, please RSVP via email to parasolwomenphoto@vam.ac.uk
23rd November 2022
6.30-8:30PM BST
Speaking:
Tanaka Mhishi is a writer, performer and storyteller. He is an Associate Fellow of the SHaME project. His works with issues surrounding masculinity and trauma have been produced on screen for BBC 3 and on stages nationwide, including This Is How It Happens, a play about male survivors of sexual violence and the Off West End Award nominated Boys Don’t which he co-wrote and performed in in partnership with Papertale Productions and Half Moon Theatre. He is poet-in-residence for the Consent Collective and a trustee for SurvivorsUK, the UK’s preeminent charity supporting male and non-binary survivors of sexual violence. Tanaka works with media organisations, charities and universities to support conversations surrounding race, sexual violence, masculinity and consent.
Dr George Severs is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the SHaME project. His research focuses on the history of male survivors of rape and sexual assault in Britain. His first book, forthcoming with Bloomsbury, examines HIV/AIDS activism in England during the 1980s and 1990s. George is Secretary of the Oral History Society’s LGBTQ special interest group and Public History Editor of Oral History.