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_{☼ GLOAM x Free House}

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☼ British Art Show 9,
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☼ Poems for Mourning
Caterpillars}

_{☼ How to Make a Blueprint

for a City}

_{☼ Poster}_Work

_{☼ Amongst Common

Interest and Other

Sanctuaries/Empires}

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☼ Soft Spaces for Seizures}_{☼ Small}_{Acts of Care}_{☼ Beanbags}_{and Soft Things}_{☼ Soundtrack of Dancing

Vibrissae and Other

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︎︎︎Materials found at House of European History, Brussels. The depiction is of 'Mother Louse' — a satirical engraving of a 17th century alewife. An alewife would wear a tall hat to advertise her selling of ale at markets, something later bastardised to become the stereotype pointy Witch hat, along with her broom and cauldron. 🧙 Being an alewife, at that time, was one of few reliable means of ‘respectable’ incomes for women. An alewife could exist without a husband and was generally in charge of her own finances — even sometimes owning property. The rise of the European Witch hunts coincides with the male mass production of beer and, therefore, the removal of alewives from ale and beer history. This work is a collaboration between myself and Dinosaur Kilby at GLOAM in Sheffield. Our work celebrates Free House’s (originally The Royal Oak Inn) 200th anniversary as a standing building — purpose built on Fazeley Street, Birmingham, as a free house in 1825.

︎︎︎ Material from Wellcome Collection, London, named 'Disease Woman', around 1420 from Germany. Most medieval and early modern medical diagrams depict the male figure and anatomy – this is still the case today, as such with defibrillators in public areas intended for a member of the public to use in the event of cardiac arrest – the models are seen without breasts, therefore the defibrillator is used differently on male and female bodies. Women are statistically twice as likely to die from a heart attack than men. Of course, the male figure on the manuals in defibrillators are not the only reason for this, as women are 4 times more likely than men to be prescribed with anti-anxiety medication for the heart attack they are actually having. Relating back to the image, although this depiction of ‘Disease Women’ was intended as a basic teaching guide, the diaphragm reinforces the incorrect idea of the female body as inherently predisposed to disease and therefore faulty. When we think about medicine and access to healthcare, most people expect it as a science to be impartial and to be fair. However the history of medicine, as well as being a scientific history, is one that is deeply linked to social and cultural issues; one that has always been rooted in the oppression of marginalised groups. We live in patriarchal societies and male dominance is ingrained in medicine and research continues to reflect it, affecting the medical knowledge that we have today.

︎︎︎ In the 11th century, Salerno, in Southern Italy, was a town, which had a very important institutions that taught physicians. It was the 1st to train women as physicians. The most famous was Trot, who lived around the middle of the 12th century and she wrote 'The Trotula'; three books that looks at the symptoms and treatments of Women's illnesses. This became really popular and widely used throughout the Middle Ages. Trot suggested really practical, humane treatments to help Women -- not to punish them for being ill. Despite this early advance, by the 14th century, Women physicians were prohibited from practicing medical provisions across Europe, so that early kind of Women training as doctors was abolished. As the Middle Ages progressed, midwives started to be blamed for poor health outcomes. We know that childbirth can be dangerous, particularly in the Middle Ages, maternal mortality, before we had more established healthcare. Women and their babies frequently died during labour. In the 15th century, midwives started to be blamed for the deaths. They were accused of being possessed by the devil; slaughtering innocents. Approximately 45,000 Women were executed during the 16th and 17th century for the crime of witchcraft. A lot of these murdered for witchcraft were midwives and healers who were who were deemed to be witches and then executed. A historian, Elinor Cleghorn, describes the motivations behind these accusations of witchcraft as being a complicated collusion of religious, social, political, and economic forces. “The anxieties about the influence of dark magic, sorcery, and demonology were rife across the continent that had been so horribly decimated by disease, upheaval, and unrest. The witch hunts and trials, where women, especially those who were unmarried, older, poor, involved in healing or practising midwifery, were maliciously scapegoated as the vectors of death and destruction.” - Elinor Cleghorn, Unwell Women (2021). In this way, Women were marginalised and actively removed from the practice of medicine.

︎︎︎ Beer can designed by Keith Dodds, brewed by Brum Brewery. Artists, Larissa Shaw and Dinosaur Kilby. GLOAM, Sheffield x Free House Birmingham.

︎︎︎ Beer mats, designed and photo by Keith Dodds.

︎︎︎ Depiction of how ale wives displayed brooms on their alehouses to show that the cauldron was full of ale to sell. Archival material found at House of European History in Brussels, Belgium, April 2025.

︎︎︎ Cut vinyl in red, text by Larissa Shaw. Installed at GLOAM, Sheffield. May 2025. Typeface designed by Keith Dodds, text distortion by Tony Evers.

︎︎︎ Mother Louse 'Alcohol free' 0.5% ABV beer. Brewed by Brum Brewery. Graphic Designer, Keith Dodds.

︎︎︎ 1825 BCE Egyptian text ‘Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus’. Endometriosis was first named in 1920, but symptoms of endometriosis have been documented in medical literature since this text in 1825 BCE. The symptoms here were really pathologised as being physical expressions of emotional distress, rather than actual physical symptoms; something that radiated throughout the European Witch hunts and into the 19th century of the times of female hysteria diagnoses. This was a time where Women, complaining of pain and symptoms of endometriosis, were treated by being accused of being ‘hysteric’ or mad. These Women were admitted to asylums and/or had to have very aggressive surgeries including removal of ovaries, hysterectomy and even lobotomies. The cases of hysterectomies is actually still being used, wrongly, in treating endometriosis. In Leah Hazard's book titled ‘Womb’, Leah writes that by point of surgery, often the person with endometriosis will have stage 3 or 4 before finally being taken seriously and referred for surgery. I say a ‘wrongful treatment of hysterectomy' here in cases when the endometriosis lesions have already spread, attaching itself to other organs, including outside of the pelvic cavity. These lesions go on to grow and further spread, so removal of any of the reproductive organs is redundant. In reflection of the rhetorics of hysteria, I think this feeling about Women and it being more psychological rather than an actual physical cause, persists today. As we see so Women are often frequently dismissed as being ‘neurotic’, anxious or a hypochondriac when they first mention their first symptoms of endometriosis. On average, 8 years later, she might be finally diagnosed. Doctors and those around them will tell them “this is an inevitable consequence of being female”. Prior to paying for private healthcare for my own diagnosis of endometriosis in 2023, I was told to “have a baby”. That this would “cure” my endometriosis – there is no evidence suggesting in any way that this is true, but I did look back in history to find where this falsification originated. It was Dr. Joe Meage, who was and still is a very influential American gynaecologist. He held a public lecture in the 1940s, where he announced that endometriosis was a disease "mainly seen in white, wealthy women who delay marriage and childbearing due to having careers." This idea of lack of childbearing in Women causing endometriosis echoes that of the Hippocratic Corpus, which was a text written around 1,500 years earlier between 5th and 3rd centuries BCE. I’m particularly interested in the trajectory of medical treatises into present day myths.

︎︎︎ The painting depicted is 'Convent Thoughts', by Charles Allston Collins in 1850 - 1851. It portrays a nun in a contemplative state within a convent garden, holding a passion flower, symbolising the crucifixion of Christ. Around the image are various flowers representing different virtues and aspects of monastic life. The nun also holds an illuminated Breviary, or Book of Hours, opened to show the Annunciation and the Crucifixion, further emphasising religious themes. The garden setting, with its lilies and water lilies, adds to the serene and contemplative atmosphere. I am currently investigating this painting into its Christian connotations. I believe there will be some evidence of this painting documenting the widespread moral panic of Women outside of Christianity practicing Witchcraft.

︎︎︎How to Make a Blueprint for a City, 03/2021. Billboard outside Cheap Cheap Gallery / The Lombard Method, 68a Lombard Street, Birmingham.

︎︎︎ Activity Sheets for Mark Essen and Sahjan Kooner's 'School of the Underkraft' for British Art Show 9. University of Wolverhampton. 01/22 - 04/22

︎︎︎ IKON for Artists, IKON Gallery, Birmingham. 05/2021.

︎︎︎Welcome To New Earth, with Black Hole Club at Vivid Projects, Birmingham. 12/2021. Designed by Keith Dodds.

︎︎︎Exhibition with Grand Union Women at 4 Cose, London, for ArtLicks Weekend, 2019. Photo by Sophie Huckfield.

︎︎︎ Activity Sheets for Mark Essen and Sahjan Kooner's 'School of the Underkraft' for British Art Show 9. University of Wolverhampton. 01/22 - 04/22

︎︎︎SHOW UP, Oldbury Allotments. With Sofia Niazi, Sahjan Kooner, Roo Kaur Dhissou & Fred Hubble. 09/21.

︎︎︎Artist Rehab Club (ARC), Welcome to New Earth. With Roo Kaur Dhissou. 12/21. Photo credit to Marcin Sz and Cathy Wade.

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︎︎︎Poster at Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam NL. 10/2019

︎︎︎Work in progress of Goldfish, Amongst Common Interest and Other Sancturies/Empires, 09/20

︎︎︎Front & back cover of a-n 40th anniversary newsletter, designed by Keith Dodds. 01/2021.

︎︎︎Book page scan from Garden Brickwork for documentation of the history of goldfish ponds in UK public gardens, 1981.

︎︎︎ Public Language / Word Power, MA writing, 2020.

︎︎︎Book page scan from Garden Brickwork for documentation of the history of goldfish ponds in UK public gardens, 1981.

︎︎︎Front page scan of ArtLicks, issue 23 Peripheries, 2018, writing with Grand Union Women.

︎︎︎Book page scan from Garden Brickwork, 1981

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︎︎︎Webpage screenshot of exhibition locations with Grand Union Womxn for ArtLicks Weekend, 2019 (London). Locations include 4Cose [Cambridge Heath], 1C Enterprise House [Hackney], The Old Police Station [Deptford] & DKUK [Peckham].

︎︎︎ Webpage screen shot of Mayday Reader [Black Hole Club publication], 01/05/2020.

︎︎︎Poems for Mourning Caterpillars, DOOM (Turn Away from the Sun): Black Hole Club at Vivid Projects in Birmingham, 07/2021.

︎︎︎’Snail Mail’, work from the Visual Communications class at State Academy of Art & Design in Stuggart #thankyoupostalworkers #thankyoufrontlineworkers #thankyouheathcareworkers IG: @klassethomas ☼

︎︎︎ Brexit mice, rant to accompany a painting. Short snippets of hope amongst the darkest: shortest day, longest night. Hopeful notes to leave folks whilst I’m not here because nothing has changed since March, except the seasons, so let’s meet in London for missed lunches in tier 2. Images of photos from phones, marking moments of happiness and hope within a banner of lightness. A moment in 2019 when we were happy, when we find the strength to say no to things when the conditions (i.e., a pandemic) aren’t right. The moment I find a caterpillar and let it crawl across my fingers. Images of caterpillars. Smooth jazz background. Opening and closing desktop windows on screen recording. Poems. Signs/graffiti on the side of buildings in Walsall and caterpillar ceremonies. Here’s to screen sharing extravaganzas. 6:30pm, next Thursday, be there or be not-represented-by-screen-recordings.

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