Teatime with Hetty Episode II

Sit back, relax and let Hetty throw a little sunshine on your year of discontent.

Teatime with Hetty Episode 1

Liverpool has achieved many LGBTQIA+ landmarks (the 1st UK city to have a ‘gay quarter’, 1st non-binary priest ordained by the C of E, longest running LGBTQIA+ arts fest in the UK
(Homotopia), longest running LGBTQIA+ youth group (GYRO) in the UK ... ), but is it truly an inclusive city?
Well, to this neurodiverse trans enby, if it is, why have I felt so isolated from my supposed community?
Is it that I struggle so much with noisy venues like pubs and clubs? That I hate people gossiping and being bitchy, more willing to tear others down than lift them up? Or was it that I have disabilities, grew well past my twenties and overweight? 
This isn't the first time I've felt isolated. I grew up in Thatcher's Britain, under the restrictions of Clause 28: The legislation brought in to shut down even the mere mention of homosexual relationships (let alone transgender ones). So, as puberty struck, I had no one to ask about the thoughts and feelings overwhelming me. My conclusion was that I was a monster with no place in society. Thankfully, there were lights in the darkness like News From Nowhere trying to make life better for people like me.For 51 yrs they've been information activists, disseminating the world's knowledge long before the internet. My artwork, depicts Julie Callaghan of News From Nowhere as The Sage. During "Stop The Clause"; campaign, Julie stated, "young people should know about all kinds of sexualities and genders", indicating they know knowledge is power (Scientia potentia est). I have shown Julie as the Roman goddess Minerva (as depicted in the statue that crowns the town hall), who was the goddess of wisdom, art, poetry, justice, and strategic warfare. It is because of people like Julie, I now know I have "an inalienable right" to be me. I have shown Julie with a suffragette flag as News From Nowhere is proudly a women's cooperative. In my living memory, the flag has had a positive association with the campaign for women's rights. Regrettably, this association is becoming polluted by those who now use the flag in their campaign against trans rights.  
Trans rights have been misinterpreted as being against women's rights and on 16th April the UK Supreme Court decided trans women aren't really women. The parallels with Section 28 are all too painfully clear. However, knowing Julie's views on gender (she also helped me to locate a non binary pride flag), my depiction of her with the suffragette flag aims to convey its historic positive associations rather than those that reduce a woman to her body parts. A more positive result of the campaign against trans rights is that it's brought trans people and their allies together, stronger, in community.  I'm relieved and gladdened to find WIA as part of that community.  I may transcend the label of woman but, from day one I was made welcome. It gladdened my heart to find I was not the only trans member of the group. WIA had worked on several gender inclusive projects before I joined and last year I was involved in the group's performance at Pride about the policing of gender. (Who would've guessed that less than a year later, this nightmare scenario would have become a reality?) I was also involved in WIA's production of Auntie - which looked at the BBC's depiction of women, questioned the BBC's narrow (and trans exclusionary) and the evolution of women's rights since the 60's. Being asked to play male and female roles, I felt my enby identity validated.  Being part of WIA has increased my confidence and lead to things I never imagined:  speaking at a trans rights protest in front of approximately a hundred people, becoming a clown (finding a philosophy to resist the daily challenges I face) and becoming a drag king with The Merseyside Kings (further exploring  gender identity and reconnecting with the LGBTQIA+ community.

Radical Retrospectives Exhibition, Breaking the Archetypal Mold: The Sage by Moon Rice.

Seize the day

Stand up

Poets of Loss

As if it's the flowers

Lost in Dirt

Finale from Smoke and Mirrors: A Cabaret for Liverpool staged in a disused mill in 2008.

Singers: Sonya Moorhead, Mike Neary, Bekah Sloan, Liam Tobin
Band: John Ellis, Andy Frizell, Simon James (wind), Tilo Prinbaum (percussion)
Composer/MD: Simon James
Artistic Director: Sarah Thornton
Designer: Steve Denton

Ship of Fearless Wonder

From Smoke and Mirrors: A Cabaret for Liverpool staged in a disused mill in 2008.

Singers: Sonya Moorhead, Mike Neary, Bekah Sloan, Liam Tobin
Band: John Ellis, Andy Frizell, Simon James (wind), Tilo Prinbaum (percussion)
Composer/MD: Simon James
Artistic Director: Sarah Thornton
Designer: Steve Denton

What have you got in the larder

From Smoke and Mirrors: A Cabaret for Liverpool staged in a disused mill in 2008.

Singers: Sonya Moorhead
Band: John Ellis, Andy Frizell, Simon James (wind), Tilo Prinbaum (percussion)
Composer/MD: Simon James
Artistic Director: Sarah Thornton
Designer: Steve Denton

The sun for a servant

The first poem in the Bits that stick to your mind series of poetry podcasts. Part of a three year programme of work which sees professional artists collaborate with people with dementia. Commissioned by Collective Encounters and read by a member of their third age acting company. Music by Patrick Dineen. Poetry created with Karen Hayes. 

Bits That Stick To Your Mind Podcast 1 - This Side of the Door

A soundscape commissioned by Collective Encounters asking:
1. What have you been hearing more of now that our world has got quieter?
And
2. What do you want to hear when this is all over?

Produced by Aisling Leyne at Lashing Rain Voice Overs
With original music by Jodie Mamatung and Nana Funk
Huge thanks to Collective Encounters, Paper Work Theatre. Torrid Star Productions and all who helped spread the word
To Rosa and Oscar for practising so hard
And to Eithne Browne, Roy Carruthers and Steffi Sweeney who lent a voice to others
Most of all thanks to everyone listed below who helped create it
Now stick on your headphones and have a listen

This soundscape is one of several mini projects reflecting on Community Power and Action, commissioned as part of Collective Encounters' "Above and Beyond" project, funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

List of Contributors
Abi Horsefield & Casey 
Alice Rowbottom
Angie Waller
Barbara Holt
Becky Barnett & Rosa 
Becky Bowman
Benny Tsang
Beverley Burnand & Ruben 
Eden Turner
Emily Turner
Greg Holt
Julie Kellington & Nia 
Jodie Mellor
Karen Skiddle 
Katy-Anne Bellis
Ken Holt
Lisa Chae
Nick Kellington 
Nikki Huston & Gray 
Pauline Chae
Pauline McKenna 
Ritchie Swan
Roy Carruthers
Philippa Roots & Oscar 
Roger Davies
Rowan Watts
Sesmin Ewing
Sie Banks & Bob
Smudge
Tammy Siebold
Tessa Buddle
Tony Chops

The Sound of Our Lockdown

This collaborative audio work is composed by Sam Yates and brings together the voices of nine queer womxn who took part in an online storytelling and poetry workshop on 2 November 2020, as part of Homotopia festival. The workshop – titled Queer Womxn in Action – invited participants to share stories of resilience and solidarity, before each producing a short poem. Each participant had brought an ‘object of resilience’ to the workshop and these provided the focal point for the poetry; acting as symbolic items through which the stories and experiences of queer womxn take on powerful and magical resonances, in celebration of both our diversity and our common cause.

This work forms part of Collective Encounters’ arts and heritage project Women in Action, funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund, PH Holt Foundation and LCVS. 

CREDITS
Composer			Sam Yates
Lead Artist/ Facilitator	Tessa Buddle

Contributors			
Char Binns
Kitty D’Lazarus 
Francesca Dolan
Becky Downing 
Monalesia Earle
Heidi Henders
Serena Piccoli
Alexandra Vick
Lois Woolley

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