

Date: | 7 Mar 2021 |
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Time: | 4:15pm |
Duration: | 75mins |
Location: | Online (Zoom) |
International Women’s Day Festival is a time for debate, education, and celebration. We’re creating shared digital spaces for you, the audience, along with academics, community organisers, activists and artists to explore universal feminist topics.
Join the Vagina Museum for a closer look at their inaugural exhibition Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How To Fight Them.
It's important to start with the basics. Like any under-represented topic, more myths and legends exist, about all things ‘down there’, than fact. This misinformation has a real and negative impact on people’s lives.
This is our second Vagina Museum event and focuses on all things clitoris!
This series of events, highlighting just a handful of the myths that circulate in popular culture, the internet, and media about gynaecological anatomy, hoping to prove that myths and legends are for fairy-tales, not our bodies.
Bring your questions and queries, there will be time for discussion.
This will be an extended session with the Vagina Museum and includes a conversation between Museum founder, Florence Schechter, Curator, Sarah Creed, and Margaret Middleton which goes a little deeper into the museum’s story and Florence’s practice.
About the Vagina Museum
There is a penis museum in Iceland, but there is no vagina equivalent anywhere in the world. Founder Florence Schechter was pretty miffed (muffed?!) when she discovered this. Not one to rest on her laurels Florence set out to rectify the situation. How? To create The Vagina Museum, of course.
The project was launched in 2017 and started with pop-ups across London including exhibitions and events at The Royal Institution, the Feminist Library, and the Freud Museum and at Green Man Festival in Wales, before opening the first premises at Camden Market.
www.vaginamuseum.co.uk
About the speakers
FLORENCE SCHECHTER, DIRECTOR, THE VAGINA MUSEUM
Pronouns: She/Her
The founder of the Vagina Museum, Florence's background is in science communication. She came highly commended in the Women of the Future Awards 2017 in the arts and culture category for her work. As a science communicator, she has performed around the world at the Science Museum, Royal Society, British Science Festival, BlueDot Festival, Abu Dhabi Science Festival and the Grant Museum, to name a few. She also sits on the Trajectory, Ideas and Ambassadors Board of Cheltenham Science Festival.
SARAH CREED, CURATOR, THE VAGINA MUSEUM
Pronouns: She/Her
Sarah is a curator and exhibitions manager with over 10 years’ experience working in a variety of museum and galleries throughout the UK, including the British Museum, Museum of London and IWM. With a passion for contemporary art and social history, Sarah has championed numerous research and exhibition projects ranging from punk culture in 1970s London to contemporary Cuban documentary photography and has a passion for making accessible and inclusive cultural content for all. An LGBTQ+ advocate and proud feminist, Sarah sees joining the Vagina Museum team as a perfect opportunity to combine her professional experience with her passion for championing open and honest discussions around sexual health, reproductive rights and gynaecology.
MARGARET MIDDLETON, FACILITATOR
Pronouns: They/Them
Margaret Middleton is an exhibit designer who recently moved to Belfast from the United States. With an educational background in industrial design and 15 years of experience in the museum field, Middleton's work resides at the intersection of design and social justice. They also write and consult with museums on family-inclusive and queer-inclusive practice.
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Sun 7 Mar 2021 | 4:15pm | Zoom Live Captioning | £0.00 | Book Now |
Pay what you can afford
We want our International Women's Day Festival to be accessible as possible and are very conscious that times are tough for us all. So these digital events will be Pay what you can Afford. The MAC is a charity and we gratefully appreciate any small help you can give to us by putting some money towards your ticket, but understand that isn't possible for everyone.
Choose one of the following ticket types:
You can also make a donation to the MAC online when you've reached the checkout stage. At this difficult time, we are more grateful than ever for those who give financially towards our work. By donating today, you're doing your bit to secure the long-term future of the MAC.
International Women’s Day Festival at the MAC
International Women’s Day Festival is a time for debate, education, and celebration. The aim is to create shared digital spaces for you, the audience, along with academics, community organisers, activists and artists to explore universal feminist issues. The festival doesn’t cover everything, rather it responds to what you, our audiences, wanted to talk about.
We’re excited and honoured to have an outstanding line-up of women taking part in our 2021 festival. These speakers will cover an array of topics from maternity rights, assisted fertility and alternative routes to parenthood, mental health and wellbeing, hormones, race, sex and trauma. The ambition is to discuss nuanced subjects with empathy and acceptance at their heart (and to have some fun too).
Due to Covid-19, we can’t host any in-person events, however, that won’t stop us online. At a time of such uncertainty, our digital events will be a source of inspiration and motivation, as well as comfort and reassurance. We hope that through conversation we are emboldened by a collective unity to better support one another and promote positive change.
How we've created the festival
This year, our International Women’s Day programme is so big it has become a week-long festival. It was important that the themes within the festival were relevant to the women of Northern Ireland. To do this, we surveyed some of our audiences, community participants, and artists asking ‘What would you like to discuss on International Women’s Day?’. The programme of events has been informed by this feedback, thank you to everyone who participated.
Who is this festival for?
International Women’s Day Festival is for anyone and everyone to attend, whomever you are, wherever you are. With all events taking place online, you can enjoy it from the comfort of your home.
Inclusivity Statement
We want the MAC to be a space of learning, growth, care, and community. We’ve put a great deal of time and energy into thinking about the kind of shared cultural and civic space we want the MAC to be. Our core aim of being inclusive of everyone who connects with our programme, or visits our venue, and online spaces is incredibly important to us.
So we want to be really clear about what this means for us. The MAC is anti-sectarian, meaning we believe in coalition-building among people with different backgrounds and experiences. Respectful debate, discussion and learning are actively encouraged.
The MAC will not tolerate sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, nor oppressive language or behaviour deemed prejudicial towards any community based on any structural inequality, including disability, socioeconomic status, sexuality, age, education, religious affiliation, or gender expression.
International Women’s Day Festival (IWDF) at the MAC is a space for anyone and everyone. Where there are women-only opportunities within the IWDF programme, they are inclusive of cis, trans, and intersex women, as well as non-binary and gender fluid or gender non-conforming people who are comfortable participating in events that centre on the experience of women.
This year, our IWDF events will take place remotely and in accordance with the current necessary public health guidelines. The Festival is open online to as many people as possible, from wherever in the world they are. We have also introduced a pay what you can afford model including a free option because we want the Festival to be as inclusive as possible.
Going online is the only thing that is changing this year. We hope you will join us.
Access Info
All events will be hosted on Zoom. On booking, you will receive your e-ticket which will include your Zoom link to access the event. If you enter your mobile number in the booking process, you will also receive a text message reminder of your Zoom link the morning of the event you have booked. Please do not share your Zoom link with a non-ticket holder as many of the events have restricted capacity.
Every event uses Zoom Live Captioning and some events will include BSL Interpretation. If you have a specific access requirement that we are not meeting, please email tickets@themaclive.com and tell us about your access needs and we'll do our best to support you.
All events are Pay What You Can Afford, which means you pay at a price point that suits your budget. This is to ensure events are as accessible for as many people as possible.
In 2020 we were able to offer a free creche, which due to the pandemic is not possible. This year, if you are looking for activities to keep kids busy whilst you attend an event, you can download colouring-in and activity sheets here.