ABsence: Awkward Bastards 2 – Symposium

Symposium Schedule PDF download

ABsence: Awkward Bastards 2 (AB2) is a symposium taking place at mac, Birmingham on 23 March 2017 bringing together artists, activists, thinkers, and producers to rethink ideas around diversity. AB2 is a collaboration between DASH, mac and LADA. 

DASH’s first Awkward Bastards symposium in March 2015 was one of the first to engage with the spectrum of diversity from disability, ethnicity, and sexuality, to gender and class. Thanks to generous funding from ACE Awkward Bastards returns in 2017 to consider the ways in which diverse artists and practices have been, are, or could be, framed and our collective responsibilities to our pasts and our futures.  

The symposium will be compered by Caroline Parker and feature artists’ presentations, keynote speeches, panel debates, a live portrait painting by Tanya Raabe-Webber, and a Radical Practices open mic session. 

Contributors: Frances Morris (Tate Modern), Tony Heaton (Shape), Mohammed Ali (artist), Rachel Anderson (Idle Women), Daniel Oliver (artist), Jamila Johnson Small (artist/organiser), Simon Casson (Duckie),  Sue Austin (artist), Melanie Keen (Iniva), Nick Llewellyn & Cian Binchy (Access All Areas), David A Bailey (International Curators Forum), Aaron Wright (Fierce Festival), Helga Henry (Birmingham Hippodrome), Sarah Watson & Thompson Hall (Creative Minds), Rachel Gadsden (artist), Gemma Marmalade (artist) and Amanda Cachia (curator).