Media, Culture & Communication

This exhibition aims to develop the theoretical perspective of my thesis for application to a public event. The exhibition will demonstrate the intimate links between text and illustration relating to Bram Stoker's most well known novel, Dracula (1897). Through the deliberate curation of text and picture side-by-side, the event aims to draw attention to the importance of the recognition and preservation of these interdisciplinary relationships.

At the very beginning of the exhibition as well as throughout the associated brochures, comics are flagged as 'subversive' and 'anarchic'. The guide states 'comics are much more than the stuff of childhood and nostalgia' (British Library, 2014) and the exhibition 'challenged preconceptions' (ibid) of the form. That being established (and re-established) there is something rather grating about the subsequent cataloguing, categorisation, organisation, curation and display of these works within the carefully protective, climate and light controlled environment that is The British Library PACCAR Gallery. Placed in sterile vitrines, locked away and suitably restrained into compliance, comics now take their place alongside the quiet and respectful Treasures of the British Library exhibition held in the adjoining gallery.

A Group Exhibition curated by The Vagilante
Inner Space Gallery, New Jersey

6 - 28 May 2017

Curatorial Statement:
The world is almost 50% women.... and 51% of the population of the United States, but for some reason the female gender and the experience of being female is discounted on so many social levels.
This group art show is meant to create a snap shot of "femaleness" in 2017. I am interested in the internal world of today's female and female identifying individuals. What are our struggles? Fears? Joys? Secrets? What are we shouting from the rooftops? I am excited to see a narrative develop through the commonalities and differences of each story, as told through visual representation.
The name and theme of this group show is an intentional double entendre. It is meant to induce the idea of seeing out of and in to, the womb.

About the curator:
The Vagilante is a feminist human rights superhero with a prominent mons pubis. Fighting fear & hatred through joyous resistance.

Group Exhibition
'Incomplete Cycles' (2017) exhibited.

Artistic Statement:
In my Cycles series I use my body as a printing press to produce a new image daily, recording weeks, months and years. Through this process I juxtapose the (occasional) unpredictability of my periods and the soft form of my vulva with the rigid and repetitively structured form of the print – an image usually made by a machine. I aim to highlight the menstrual cycle as a process in flux, as opposed to a like-clockwork and regimented pattern. The daily ritual of making prints eventually becomes a long-term record, establishing a space of resistance to everyday cultural narratives of menstruation.

Curator's Statement:
Exhibitionist is the Vagina Museum’s first pop up art exhibition. It showcases talented artists from around the world. The art displays the myriad of ways the vagina and vulva can be represented and our perceptions of them.

Curated by Florence Schechter
Vagina Museum, hosted by Woodland Creatures, Edinburgh
5-27 August 2017

This article analyses three examples of online medical advice provided by UK based health websites on the topic of menstruation, and reflects on my artistic practice as a critical response to notions of menstrual normativity. The article considers to what extent these online platforms-now part of the cultural fabric of contemporary healthcare advice-sustain dominant Western cultural perceptions of menstruation. Through thematic and comparative analysis, the article explores how these texts reflect cultural discourses around menstruation through reinforcing cis and heteronormative standards, presenting menstruation as failed pregnancy, and as a largely problematic rather than positive experience. The article also reflects upon autobiographical and performative artworks as spaces developed alongside the analysis of the online medical advice texts, which propose and explore resistance to the social stigma still associated with menstruating.

Over the last decades, menstruation has become more present in public discourse in Scotland.While scholars are increasingly documenting this change, little attention has been paid to therole of menstrual art made in Scotland. In this article, we explore the historic contexts ofmenstrual art in the town of St Andrews and in Scotland during the late twentieth and earlytwenty-first century, and ask what this reveals about menstrual absence and presence in publicdebates. We do this in collaboration with artist Bee Hughes, whose practice focuses on thevisible and invisible aspects of menstruation, and who was artist in residence at St Andrews in2020. Due to a university strike and a pandemic, our collaboration changed and subsequentlyfocused more on the histories of menstrual art. We thus assess symbols and collections ofmenstrual visual culture in Scotland, including the use of the ceremonial red gown at theUniversity of St Andrews, and menstrual art collections at Glasgow Women’s Libra...

The State of the Media Report is a quarterly assessment of the media environment in Zambia. This edition of the report covers the second quarter of 2016. The assessment and record describes the media situation in Zambia during this period and was prepared by the Zambian Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa – (MISA Zambia). This includes the environment in which media institutions exist and operate and how such an environment affects individual journalists.
Included in the report are a number of interesting occurrences that continue to add new developments, twists and intrigues to the media environment in Zambia, constituting significant developments during the second quarter.
The major highlights in the review show that this being an election year, all eyes of the stakeholders are turned on the conduct of the media in its entirety, and more so on the public media houses as they continue receive a lot of scrutiny of their performance.
In terms of performance and conduct of the media, growing trends of polarisation were evident in the content carried by various media especially when it comes to the coverage and reporting on various political players in the country The highlight of the quarter is without a doubt the Zambia Revenue Authority’s raid on the Post newspaper where it seized property at the newspaper's printing plant bringing the paper's operations to a halt on the 21st of June 2016. A week before the raid, ZRA issued a demand notice of slightly over K 50 million following a ruling in its favour by the Supreme Court. The Post is one of Zambia's few outlets that carry dissenting views and critical opinions and has received several threats over its news coverage. This also demonstrates that a media house's economic freedom is closely linked to its editorial freedom and the situation with the Post is a classic example of what happens when economic standing is manipulated to interfere with a media house's editorial freedom.

The presidential petition was on the 5th September 2016 dismissed by Zambia’s Constitutional Court on account of the 14 days as provided for in the amended constitution having elapsed on Friday 2nd September 2016. The petitions followed a hotly contested presidential race between the incumbent Edgar Lungu of the Patriotic Front, PF and his closest rival Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development, UPND.

The petition had been filed on the 19th August 2016, four days after a disputed declaration of the incumbent as President-elect. The petition was supposed to be heard within fourteen days as provided in Article 101(5) of the Constitution which states that;
    (5)The Constitutional Court shall hear an election petition filed in accordance with clause (4) within fourteen days of filing of the petition.

The presidential petition was on the 5th September 2016 dismissed by Zambia’s Constitutional Court on account of the 14 days as provided for in the amended constitution having elapsed on Friday 2nd September 2016. The petitions followed a hotly contested presidential race between the incumbent Edgar Lungu of the Patriotic Front, PF and his closest rival Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development, UPND.

The petition had been filed on the 19th August 2016, four days after a disputed declaration of the incumbent as President-elect. The petition was supposed to be heard within fourteen days as provided in Article 101(5) of the Constitution which states that;
    (5)The Constitutional Court shall hear an election petition filed in accordance with clause (4) within fourteen days of filing of the petition.

In the run up to the August 11, 2016 elections, the Electoral Commission of Zambia committed to enhance the provision of electoral services for persons with disabilities to ensure their full inclusion in line with the High Court judgment of 2011 in which the court ruled that the ECZ was running an inaccessible and discriminatory electoral system. A group of persons with disabilities after training as monitors in Kafue Interestingly, the electoral body drew up an ambitious programme to ensure that our differently abled brothers and sisters, the disabled electorates are afforded an equal opportunity to fully participate in the election. The ECZ drew an action plan and budget on disability which included a commitment to procure 5,600 ramps in polling stations informed by an audit of polling stations. The total estimated cost according to a report by Bruce Chooma of Disability Rights Watch was K2, 800, 000. According to Mr Chooma, who is the Disability Rights Watch Coordinator; "the commission also committed to relocate all polling stations that were located on top floors to ground floors. For the visually impaired the ECZ promised to provide ballot paper jackets for voters who were visually impaired and do not wish to be assisted in casting a secret ballot." This was estimates were based on the collated statistics of registered voters with visual impairments at a cost of K1, 344, 000. The commission also committed to voter education materials into braille at an estimated cost of K55, 411, 300.

The Zambia Elections Information Centre has expressed concern that levels of women participation in this year’s general elections had drastically reduced. Meanwhile, ZEIC has also observed that media has not given enough space on the various platforms.

Speaking at the launch of the ZEIC pre-election report in Lusaka, ZEIC Vice Chair of the Council of Elders Dr. Anna Chifungula expressed concern that instead of improving upon the previous records, all the participating political parties had reduced women representation despite promises to increase women contestants to around 50%.

Trends clearly show that in as far as women’s representation in decision making particularly for MPs is concerned, Zambia continues to fall below the SADC Gender Protocol which advocates for 50% representation in decision making positions.

According to Zambia Election Information Center “fewer female candidates (106) in comparison with the 2011 election where a total of 138 women stood at parliamentary level. Seven of these women were contesting as independent candidates.”

Without a doubt, the third quarter comes off as arguably the most turbulent period in the history of the media in Zambia in terms of state interference and outright violations against the media’s independence and freedom to conduct itself in a safe and conducive environment. This is due to the unprecedented heavy handedness by the state that resulted in the suspension of licences at once for three broadcast stations by the Independent Broadcasting Authority, IBA. The targeted stations are MUVI Television Limited Company, Komboni Radio of Lusaka District in Lusaka Province as well as Itezhi-tezhi Community Radio Station of Itezhi-tezhi District in Central Province. This action was against the backdrop of the raid against the Post Newspaper by the Zambia Revenue Authority for alleged Tax non-compliance by the firm which has caused the newspaper to face serious operational challenges for close to three months now since 22nd June when ZRA closed their premises.