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Jessa Fairbrother | Artist

@jessfairbrother

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Making | writing memoir | practice-led PhD candidate: body, stars, cosmos ✨✨✨ @wellcomecollection + @kingston.school.of.art funded by @technedtp
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Sometimes things are special and you get to be part of the moment. This is rare. This time it happened to me. I made something, out of something that happened that was so incredibly sad.....but it meant something..... and people have come, and a brilliant book has been written....This is important.... That thing.... The gift of being alive and a special thing has happened... because the stars aligned and I was able to see it when it happened. That is truly magic. Because sometimes the people who were meant to find you do find you....or you find them ... and we all can see what we are all doing...... and everything changes for a split second. And in that split second - for it is only a moment, that moment of being alive - the world feels full of possibilities and hope. And I know how much it means ....to be in this moment. A celebration, a joy, for Hettie's book @hettiejudah Acts of Creation published by @thamesandhudson #actsofcreation #artist #body #care #craft #drawing #drawingwithneedle #embroidery #feelings #feminist #jessafairbrother #handmade #infertility #maternal #miscarriage #motherhood #needle #perforations #performance #perforatedpaper #photography #stitch #textille #unique by @jessfairbrother
19
2 years ago
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Today marks the opening of Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood @mac_birmingham and I couldn't be more excited. This is the first time I’ve been in a show “on tour” and I cannot wait to see how things get re-shaped by the experience, what new meanings are made, how the space changes the feeling.  Catching up with friends old and new is also an absolute joy. This work has become such a formative part of my practice and experience and there is a strange alchemy in doing this which has given me a new insight into the purpose of speaking about it in public life. I’m incredibly grateful that the work - and I - can be part of this conversation, making space in dialogues of motherhood for those who do not have the birthing body. 🙏🏼 @hettiejudah and @gillyfoxdotcom and Brian Cass at Hayward Touring. #artist #body #care #craft #drawing #drawingwithneedle #embroidery #feelings #jessafairbrother #handmade #needle #perforations #performance #perforatedpaper #photograph #stitch #textile #womanartist #unique #vulnerability taken in Midlands Arts Centre - MAC by @jessfairbrother
10
2 years ago
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An incredible day @mac_birmingham last week for the opening of Acts of Creation: on Art and Motherhood who looked after us so brilliantly and put on a wonderful day - we had tea, cake and a totally fantastic party. There is such collegiality here - it's so hospitable, with direct references to all the other shows on / artists across the city. 🙏🏼 @deborahkermode @romapiotrowska It's scorchingly difficult to get shows into the physical realm - I hope if you get the chance you come and see it in person. They are important. They steward work like mine into the public discourse, they bring to the surface things that should have been seen but haven't, and they remind people of conversations that have not changed in decades. It can feel dispiriting, that last part, but the only action is to keep coming together, to keep showing up, as audiences, colleagues, peers, friends. It means something - that we were here and we saw this thing, and we were changed by it. And it's one of the most joyful things too - the connections made between artists - I'm so pleased to meet in real life (!) @rachelfallon3840 and Christian Peake who looks after the @maeve_gilmore_archive and hang out again with @leni_dothan and @fani_parali , my new sisters-in-arts. Leni said something about togetherness when talking about work on the press tour - patriarchy tries to divide us, and this show is an example of us being brought back together - which is how it's meant to be. I'm looking forward to the symposium in September as part of the expanded programming around this with the generous @sallybutcher - who also took this lovely photo of Hettie and me. Absolutely loved hearing #surichardson talk about her work + members of Feministo group, seeing @leaceterastudio turning over her egg timer glass to open the show, and my meaningful conversation with wonderful @jai_chuhan , whose significant pregnancy painting pre-dates any celeb bump photoshoot. All brought together by incredible @hettiejudah with Hayward Gallery Touring @gillyfoxdotcom /Brian Cass. What an extraordinary show to be part of. #actsofcreation #artandmotherhood #art #body #care #jessafairbrother #maternal #womensupportingwomen by @jessfairbrother
15
2 years ago
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An intro if you're new here to my work. Thanks to all the amazing folk I met @jamaicastreetstudios and the conversations. Especially touched with the people who kindly stood and read several thousand words from my memoir, and responded with such kindness and generosity. I am very moved by that Making things to make people feel things drives my practice and I'm so glad you all came to spend time in my room 🙏🏼 xox taken in Jamaica Street Studios by @jessfairbrother
0
14 days ago
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About the weekend @jamaicastreetstudios 🙏🏼 to everyone who came. See you next year xox by @jessfairbrother
10
21 days ago
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At Open Studio @jamaicastreetstudios we all tend to share something recent and try to make it interesting for our supporters who come every year. So I've put up extracts written as I developed an interdisciplinary writing practice thanks to the Arts Council last year. 🙏🏼 @aceagrams .... Sixty-thousand-words in I've realised I have a full-on-memoir. I've put a short excerpt out because I don't want to share online. I also have visual work in progress from my practice led PhD exploring the body in the cosmos through the topic of the maternal of the non-birthing body, thresholds and the body in time. I do this with horoscopes and quilting, puncturing, making holes. Great stuff for Instagram :\ I have no hook whatsoever. Also, there's no songs about daughters looking at mothers so the music is an old favourite This Woman's Work - Kate Bush. Come for a chat this Friday evening or over the weekend. #openstudio #maternalstudies #womenartist #feelings #archive by @jessfairbrother
6
25 days ago
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When Jessa and Lily talked memoir. Acclaimed memoirist Lily Dunn @lilydunnwriting paid me a visit in my studio @jamaicastreetstudios to catch up and we talked about her online memoir boot camp which I did last year. So far I'm 50,000 words deep. It's been one of the most transformative pieces of work I have ever engaged in, for so many reasons. It's quite hard to share - impossible even - in process. But I think the insight into the course might be helpful if you are thinking of trying to write a memoir yourself or understand life-writing as a key part of your artist-practice. Lily is doing another "boot camp" this September through @londonlitlab - a course spread over several weeks that includes teaching, workshopping, tutorials and listening to industry experts. I learned so much about memoir and still meet with several of our original group, almost every week, which gives me psychological safety to develop my voice 🌿🌼. You can find more 👇🏼 https://www.londonlitlab.co.uk/course/memoir-bootcamp-get-submission-ready-with-lily-dunn-2/ Ever grateful for @aceagrams who's DYCP funding meant I could do this and spend time taking a risk, building new networks and creating new work which is part of my investigation of the maternal as the daughter. Description of image: Pictured here is artist Jessa Fairbrother on left in her studio with art behind her, talking with writer Lily Dunn. taken in Jamaica Street Studios by @jessfairbrother
3
5 months ago
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If you read my newsletter this week, you’ll know my News‑News: Amgueddfa Cymru | Museum Wales has acquired three early needle‑pierced works — tiny holes that speak to the porous body. This is one of them. I do a lot of thinking about holes. On the radio I heard them talking about Voyager 1’s photograph of Earth as a pin‑prick, a pixel in the dark — the last image the probe sent back in 1990. Millions of lives held in a single mark. Each puncture I make in photographic blackness gestures to the same thing — the everything and nothing of being born and dying. All of it contained in a single pin‑prick. What’s in the hole? It is us. There has been a lot about space this week, as Artemis launches toward the moon. And yet, despite the perpetual race to find something elsewhere, here on Earth people die for reasons that should never exist. We voyage into nothingness searching for meaning, while those here need something to make peace. Beauty still exists. by @jessfairbrother
12
7 months ago
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If you want to read the poem look in caption 👇🏼...it was written following the reveal of the statue dedicated to Mary Wollstonecraft a few years ago in London and the hoo-ha about her being naked....I thought it was quite funny that we were so bothered about this for a few moments. I'd quite like that to be the news now, rather than the actual news. Anyway, here's a poem about it. Flesh Fear of flesh Fear of female flesh Fear of fantasising about female flesh Framing fantasies fantasising about female flesh Focussing fantasies fantasising about female flesh frameworks Focussing on *ucking Freud: does he fantasise about female flesh? Fantasising about Foucault and Freud is forbidden! Father father! I have no issue with my father! Funny fannies are frightening Funny fanny fiddle Funny fanny Flesh #irreverent #womenpoet #feministpoetry #dontprickyourself by @jessfairbrother
2
7 months ago
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I wrote this poem five years ago after Sarah Everard was murdered. I didn’t post it then because I was scared. I don’t think I am now. 🐺 Struggling with the concept of International Women’s Day because… every day is Women’s Day if you get to live it. So here’s a poem I wrote when I was angry. I’m still angry. xox Woof Woofs Big bad wolves are back Being big Being bad Giving your average part-time bogeyman a run for his money with a specialist slobbery tongue and some teeth. Here is the woof-woof out on the prowl, Flashing his cock of the walk, ever so proud. I like-a-walking-it-I-like-a-talking-it Doing a strut all pleased with himself, even though there's No one to see. He thought he'd start small, just a cock here or there, a little waggle or two now and then. Just to show the bitches who's boss. Big bad wolves are back Now with phones and secret vpn-skills How clever you are, Mr Wolf, doing a cyber-cock of the walk as well, your mum must be ever so proud. I-like-a-walking-it-I-Iike-a-stalking-it Oooh, there he is doing a days hard graft from his phone, making sure he keeps those *itches in line, he works like a dog don't you know! You can get an awful lot done in 280 characters! Big bad wolves are back Being big and tough with their woof-woof And their cock-o'-the-walks. But no one sees how important they are.... Now Even *itches get walkies whenever they want! It's hard being a wolf. It's not like the old days when wolves had respect! When wolves could cock their legs against any old thing they wanted because they Were A Wolf! But all woo-woooolves go to the vets eventually. And when the wooo-woo-woolf can only do his Woo-woo-wooing, lick-lick-licking where it's balls were cut off.... It's just a woof-woof. #SpokenWordPoetry #WomenWriting #WomensVoices #WomenSpeak #poetryReel SharpTongue DontPrickYourself by @jessfairbrother
16
7 months ago
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About receiving work back, what it means and how circulation happens. Receiving..so powerful. ❤️❤️❤️ @hayward.gallery touring @gillyfoxdotcom @hettiejudah by @jessfairbrother
2
8 months ago
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Thinking back to my talk last year with @piapack after @jessica.akerman invited me to do an @artbarbristol @kit.form and how this made me think a lot more about the grid. I'm really concentrating on the way information is organized within a system - timetables at the moment in particular. How they make meaning. I can't really explain too much - I'm so at the beginning, but one of the things that has always been a conundrum to me is the problem of using "The body" as a figure in the work and that then misleading what the work is ABOUT. It being misunderstood as biography. Bodies in work sometimes make work seem like it's about the person, not the structure that it is referring to. But bodies doing things - a body - can illuminate something happening to many bodies. I'm really interested in the way the body metabolizing experience becomes the representative of the thing. Not the thing itself. And when it's two bodies, one inside the other, what's going on there? And this can all be hidden in the work. Because beauty is also a method. No chit-chat....just here for the deep stuff. Tell me about your mother xox #jessafairbrother #artist #body #performance grid by @jessfairbrother
1
9 months ago
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