Artists Mia Weiner and Salma Ahmad Caller both share a concern to shift the narrative regarding representation of the female body in art and colonial history. Mobilising uniquely different visual languages, the aim of their work is transformative: to activate and liberate the female body from its historic role as passive object of the male gaze. 

In this talk, Mia Weiner will discuss Sirens, a series of headless textile portraits she made of herself and other female, non-binary and intersex models that recall Classical Greek sculpture. Her tapestries beckon the viewer into a realm where mythology mingles with contemporary discourse on gender and femininity inviting us to question and re-imagine the world in which we live. Salma Ahmad Caller mines her collection of 19th Century colonial postcards of women labelled as being from ‘Egypt’ that in reality depict a wide range of women from Egypt, Sudan and sub Saharan Africa, to create a series of photographs and hybrid digital/analogue collages, that offer the subjects new emergent possibilities of representation. She will discuss Atlas Series, Emergent Dreams and the foundation of Postcard Women’s Imaginarium.

Weiner and Caller will be joined by Raquel Villar-Pérez who will moderate the talk. Villar-Pérez is Curator at Impressions Gallery, Bradford and a writer. 

Mia Weiner is a winner of the V&A Parasol Foundation Prize for Women in Photography. Her work will be on display in Copeland Gallery between 17th–26th May.

Book your ticket here.