Up In Arms

Artists Anna-Maria Nabirye and Annie Saunders

present their new multi-disciplinary work, Up In Arms, a new way to make space for conversation in our increasingly divided world.

Using ritual, photography and social practice to create intimate conversation and radical social change, Up In Arms is a culmination of our work as activists, creative collaborators, black and white women respectively and friends. The piece exists as an intimate experience in real time, a piece of live art and social practice, as we invite two friends to become audience-participants, a Black woman and a friend of her choice, to re-enact and re-create the iconic portrait of Dorothy Pitman-Hughes and Gloria Steinem captured by photographer Dan Wynn in 1971 for Esquire Magazine. The re-creation of this image acts as a ritual to open space for uncomfortable, challenging, transformative conversation, led by the artists. The resulting documentation forms a multimedia performance by the artists for flexible spaces. The footage, audio and portraits comprise a non-performative installation, and the artists are compiling a book project, the Up In Arms Handbook for Intersectional Collaboration.

Up In Arms has been developed with residencies, performances and live events at no.w.here, London, UK; The Showroom Gallery, London, UK; MANA Contemporary, Jersey City, USA); The International Women's Film Festival, Dortmund, Germany, The Association of Austrian Women Artists, Vienna, and online for the BBC x Women of the World Festival Global 24 in 2020.

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We're showing up for the challenge of this conversation, and we hope you'll join us. We're learning a lot and are excited to share this emerging work with you.

To see more and join the conversation click Below

UP IN ARMS IS BEING DEVELOPED TO TOUR TO SPACES ACROSS THE GLOBE GET IN TOUCH IF YOU WOULD LIKE UP IN ARMS TO START A CONVERSATION NEAR YOU.

Photography by Emma Jane Richards. Copyright Protected 2020