As a child Bev loved to create art, especially drawing and textiles, but this was not ‘a real job’ her teachers said. Nevertheless, she was inspired by her mum, who was a seamstress, and the tapestry, The Leaf-lady: Mocking the mastery Narrative, is a celebration of her mother’s profession. Therefore, the choice of media directly relates to the legacy and memory of her and those unnamed and forgotten needlewomen that embodied their experiences in their art Furthermore, the work clearly references the reproductive labour of Woman and the power/knowledges embodied in the mythological positioning of Mother Nature. It has connotations of Gaia, the goddess of the Earth/universe, linking to the power/knowledges of wom(b)an, the maternal, the creator. It was the first artwork created for many years and it was incorporated into the thesis.
In her oeuvre, the voices of marginalised others are kept alive as patriarchy and colonisation are destabilised. For example, usually the needleworker would have clean hands and then the work would be washed to preserve the fabric to avoid the bacteria distressing the materials. However, Bev is interested to see the decay of the of found materials reacting with the medium; this symbolises the disintegration of the ‘master’s’ authority, his genius that is accorded in a ‘high’ artwork. In her Feminist artworks, she collapses the boundaries of craft and art as well as the master/pupil positioning, which is disrupted in the making processes.
The Fertile (Un)conscious
This small tapestry was made in conjunction with a poem, Gift of the Creative Unconscious, inspired by Ama Agyeman’s doctoral research. Whilst working together as she completed her thesis, I was thinking about how to sustain motivation during the doctorial process for her and all my student(s). Ama was an inspiration to me. She successfully undertook her viva, and her examiners said of her research that it was “a powerful piece of work which sheds light on the complex effects of the lived experiences of parents of children who have been permanently excluded from school”.
Hayward, B., (2024). The Fertile (Un)conscious, embroidery with silks, beads and pomegranate juice 17.78 x 17.78 cm, private collection.
Unruly Women
Unruly Women: Exhibition at the Nucleus Halpine Gallery, Chatham. Exhibiting resistances and resilience: The significance of a physical presence in feminist art practices by Beverley Hayward
The Feminist Imaginary in Praxis
Drawing upon the feminist imaginaries as conceptualised by Harman, Clover and Stanford (2023) in Feminism, Adult Education and Creative Possibility, this collaborative project explores how adults in higher education can challenge and resist the norms of academia in the global north. The project facilitators explore the feminist imaginaries as psychosocial spaces in which praxis creates academically different gifts of knowledges. The context is set at Birkbeck College, University of London. Whilst teaching a master’s module, Education, Power and Resistance, the module lecturer, Bev Hayward, invited Max Chester to present a lecturer. As the guest lecturer Max used participatory story telling approaches to bring to life her lived experiences, as artist as educator-activist. After consulting the students, the traditional lecturer-seminar format was abandoned to embrace the possibilities of feminist imaginary pedagogic approaches. At intervals during the lecture, Maxine asked the students to write down three words or phrases on post-it-notes, an example of which is included. The outcome was a zine that was finalised in the last session of the module; here the gifts from the students, in the format of poems and artworks, were gathered by Rob Roach who designed and produced the zine, entitled, The Feminist Imaginaries in Praxis. It explores the collaborative pedagogies in action and suggests that by taking risks as educators, new and unexpected knowledges are created. The project facilitators were inspired by feminist caring and ethical approaches. But more significantly, they were inspired by the students on the programme, their enthusiasm and abundance of knowledge production lead to and use knowledge production created the cross pollination of imaginative responses. The proceeds will be donated to a mother and baby charity.
