Our forthcoming SMS International Women's Day event is designed to foster dialogue and action concerning disability and gender inclusion. The lecture will be given by Jo Longhurst, a UK-based artist, and winner of the Canadian 2012 Grange Prize, Canada’s highest award for excellence in international photography Jo will discuss her work on unseen illnesses and her role as a member of a collective of non-binary creatives and creative women who live with a variety of unseen conditions. We want to use this session to hold a mirror to our university culture, highlighting unseen conditions within our work environment and supporting those who navigate the complexities and systems of university life, which does not easily accommodate the interruptions caused by illness and disability.
The session will include a panel to respond to Jo’s reflections and time for audience questions. This session will bring together university staff and postgraduate students to create a platform that amplifies voices and lived experiences shaped by gender and disability. Significantly, the forum will identify the priorities and experiences of disabled staff members, setting the stage for action and awareness in preparation for SMS’s next EDI (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion) initiative in 2025, which will focus on disability.
Chair: Professor Rachel Cowen Professor of Inclusive Researcher and Academic Development and University Academic Lead for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion
Discussants:
• Beck Heslop (PGR, CHSTM, SMS)
• Dr Sabine Sharp (eLearning Support)
• Rachel Heyes (Learning Technologist)
Location:
There are two options for this event. First, you can join in person in the Zochonis Building, Lecture Theatre B. There will be coffee and cake served following the event. For those joining us online, we will provide an online discussion after the event for 20 mins.
Jo's bio:
Jo Longhurst is an artist who critiques traditions of portraiture through a combination of photography, sculptural elements, moving image, performance and installation. Collaborative works investigate the act of looking and being looked at: how we judge and are judged, and how we attempt to fit in. She has published three books: The Refusal, for her solo exhibition at Museum Folkwang, Essen; Other Spaces, to accompany her exhibition at Mostyn, Llandudno and Ffotogallery, Cardiff; and On Perfection: an Artists’ Symposium, which documents an event Longhurst staged at Whitechapel Gallery. Her work has won many awards including the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Grange Prize, Canada’s highest award for excellence in international photography. In her most recent project Crip, Jo works with images of bindweed - an undesirable, marginalised plant, which grows in an anti-clockwise direction - and 19C portraits of female patients in European medical institutions, to explore the concept of crip time. This theory elaborates on how the disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically ill experience time and space differently from others.
Register now to get your free ticket
Speakers
Jo Longhurst
Role: Artist
Organisation: Guest speaker
Rachel Cowen, Professor of Inclusive Researcher and Academic Development
Role: University Academic Lead for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion
Organisation: FBMH, SMS, Division of Medical Education
Beck Heslop
Role: PGR, Teaching Assistant (chstm)
Organisation: FBMH, SMS, Division of Medical Education
Dr Sabine Sharp
Role: eLearning Support Officer
Organisation: eLearning Team, The Library, The University of Manchester
Rachel Heyes
Role: Learning Technologist
Organisation: FBMH, SMS, Division of Medical Education
