On the same day that we announced our charity exhibition for Women's History Month, we found out that our funding application to Arts Council England was rejected.
This was a disheartening blow, but the show must go on!
WHO ARE WE?
Eliza Hatch is a photographer, activist, speaker and founder of Cheer Up Luv, a photo series and platform dedicated to retelling stories of sexual harassment. Bee Illustrates is a queer, non-binary, illustrator who uses their art to educate and inform on a range of topics like feminism, mental health and queerness.
ABOUT THE SHOW:
Hysterical is a charity group exhibition celebrating women and marginalised genders whose work is centred on community, activism and uplifting the voices of those around them. The show will bring together creatives from multiple disciplines including photography, illustration, film, textiles and digital media whose work focuses on issues such as identity, race, sexual harassment, gender, politics and more.
We have 20 amazing creatives showcasing their work, from a diverse range of backgrounds and with a lot of overlapping identities, many of them queer or otherwise marginalised.
OUR GOAL:
We know how hard it is to come by creative opportunities that focus on community and emerging artists - especially ones that aren’t focused on lining someone’s pockets! We truly feel that this exhibition will be a wonderful experience for our group of exhibitors, as well as attendees. Our ethos for this project is centred around our desire to create the opportunity we wish we had when trying to break into the creative industry.
We want to be able to put together a show that does all of the artists' wonderful work justice, while also being able to fairly pay and support our panellists, workshop hosts, and everyone else involved in the exhibition - as we are passionate about paying creatives for their work.
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
This is where you come in. We are calling out to you, our community, and asking for your support to help us put on a great exhibition! Even as little as £1 would make a huge difference.
In the interest of transparency, here is exactly what your money will be used for:
- To pay our 6 panellists for their time
- Booking a BSL interpreter for our panel event/any other accessibility accommodations we can make
- To pay our workshop host for their time and materials used in the workshop.
- Printing costs for posters/promotional materials
- Art handling costs (covering postage costs of our artists who are shipping physical work to us, items used for hanging and installing works, etc)
- Gallery rental fee, including electricity costs for the time we are using the space
- Equipment rental (projectors, other electrical items)
- Hiring a photographer for the private view
- Paying invigilators/assistants for their time
This is a charity exhibition with money raised from our event ticket sales going directly to our charity partners UN Women UK + Mermaids. Any money raised that is surplus to our needs will be donated.
Even if you aren't able to donate, sharing our fundraiser would be so, so helpful, and would truly mean the world to us as well as all of our exhibiting artists!
Thank you so much.
Love from,
Eliza & Bee
Xxx