We are thrilled to present 'Growing Gills', the inaugural instalment of our public Summer Programme, running from June to August 2023. The event series brings together feminist researchers, activists, filmmakers, and practitioners from the Sinophone world to investigate the intersection between visual culture and activism. It draws on an emerging archipelagic and inter-Asia network of those who identify as women, including cisgender, transgender, intersex, and other fluid identities, to probe into contemporary forms of oppression and new ways of being, connection, and creation.
Every act of breathing is laborious in the murky waters of what bell hooks classifies as the 'imperialist white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy.' From the disappearances of radical feminist accounts in the Chinese digital sphere to the restriction of migrant movements based on passport and visa discriminations; from the populist backlash faced by Lumbung collectives to the silencing and exile of queer Chinese activists, the creative evolutionary process of 'Growing Gill' recognises the intersectional struggles of gender, race, sexual orientation, class, and citizenship status. It takes the personal that is multifariously political as a starting point to learn how to breathe in water.
Enlivened by the oxygen that life is made of, 'Growing Gills' provides a safe space for multiple subjectivities and transversal solidarities. It foregrounds the feminist relationality of repair over violence by staging different ways of gathering, such as lecture performances, film screenings, open mics, cooking workshops, and intimate conversations. In doing so, our Summer Programme celebrates the joyful politics and emancipatory practices of feminist collectives and gestures towards the promises and possibilities of decolonial, antiracist, queer, and egalitarian futures.
The series is organised by Nick Yu, Head of Programme, and Junko Asano, independent researcher and writer.