F= 'Women, visibility and playful acts'

F=, a group of four Senior Lecturers in the School of Art, Architecture and Design at Leeds Beckett University, will be delivering an experimental performative talk at Leeds Town Hall on Wednesday 9 March as part of the Leeds Cultural Conversations (LCC) series – a collaborative venture by the Centre for Culture and the Arts at Leeds Beckett and Leeds City Council.

Dr Liz Stirling, one member of the group, said: “F= came about in response to the reoccurring declaration made by our students ‘I’m not a feminist but…’ which coincided with our own desire to explore the significance of feminism in creative practices.  Since 2013 we have worked with students in designing and hosting public events. This unique educational model encourages the value of humour and spectacle as a way to provoke and invite responses to themes around equality and diversity now.

“Our focus has always been to celebrate International Women’s Day - the emphasis being on the word celebrate – but after three years of parades, unconferences, art, singing, and much absurdity and irreverence being packed into only a couple of days, we have decided this year to stage a month-long festival in collaboration with Room 700, Leeds Central Library. Festival of the Body will bring to Leeds city a feminist party like it has never experienced through free events and performances.

“Our experimental performative talk given as part of the LCC series will publically play with the form of academic engagement using music, words, pictures, wigs and the colour yellow.”

The LCC series, which is sponsored by Palgrave Macmillan, sees some of the Centre’s leading academics deliver lunchtime talks in some of the city’s most iconic buildings. Previous speakers have included Dr Katy Shaw and Professor Alison Oram. For more information on the series please visit www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/LCC.

F= is Dr Liz Stirling, Dr Casey Orr, Jo Hassall and Laura Robinson. Festival of The Body will take place from Wednesday 2 March to Tuesday 29 March. More information, including how to book tickets can be found at fequals.co.uk.

The full list of talks in the LCC series is:

• Women, visibility and playful acts - Dr Liz Stirling, Dr Casey Orr, Jo Hassall, Laura Robinson. Wednesday 9 March 2016 12.30pm, Albert Room, Leeds Town Hall.
• Cooking without a clock: women, domesticity and timekeeping in nineteenth century Europe. - Dr Rachel Rich, Senior Lecturer in European History. Wednesday 13 April 2016 12.30pm, Denny Room, Leeds City Museum.
• Eastern European ‘show trials’ of the 1950s: the Slansky case - Dr Kelly Hignett, Senior Lecturer in History. Wednesday 11 May 2016 12.30pm, Court Room, Leeds Town Hall.