MEMORIA 2020

PictureFootprint canvas painted by people at the sessions



                                                                                                                                                       "WE MUST REMEMBER THAT WE HAVE FORGOTTEN”
                                                                                                                                                                                                     Aurelio Diaz Tekpankali, indigenous spiritual leader


The word MEMORIA is the etymological Latin root of the word memory: “the faculty of remembering; remembrance, memory, a historical account”.
As Plymouth gets closer to the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower sailing, the MEMORIA 2020 project aims to encourage our community to “recover our memory”; to remember what really happened in 1620, the historical facts, the social, political and cultural legacy of this episode of history and to decide what we want to do with this memory.

The arrival of the Mayflower in North America affected thousands of lives here and on the other side of the ocean
and changed all of us for ever; it is vital that we maintain a public and honest conversation about this, listening carefully, as a local and global community.
Throughout all this new season, from September 2019 to November 2020, Feminist Fusion invite you be part of this public dialogue about what this anniversary represents, making sure we hear the indigenous version of that past, and allowing their political and philosophical contributions for a fair and sustainable future - for a long time ignored in western politics - to be at the table.

In these critical times we want to inspire our community to seek a new perspective, to walk together towards the truth without denial but with love, with art, with environmental consciousness, and with all the inspiration we can gather from our extraordinary local poets, painters, dancers, musicians, performers and speakers.

An honest public dialogue reconnects people and minimises the potential for friction, separation or discrimination.

There is a future that we can co-create together.

MEMORIA 2020 has been partially funded by Vital Sparks "Mayflower 400" Community Fund.


CONCEPTS BEHIND MEMORIA 2020

Apart from the traditional elements which accompany Feminist Fusion, MEMORIA is engaging with a specific element: the spiral time.

“Spiral Time and Spiral Thinking” - Spiral Thinking (Pensamiento en Espiral), coined by Chilean-Mapuche author Victor Gavilán Pinto, refers to a world-view rooted in most indigenous cultures of Latin America and some First Nations of the North, where life is believed to manifest and move as a spiral, with all its elements alive, intrinsically connected and influencing each other. For the MEMORIA project we focus specifically in the concept of spiral time, where the past, the present and the future share the same physical space, interacting, moving and affecting each other. In this vision one could “walk towards the past” and/or “return from the future”.
This perception, although very different from the traditional western view of 'linear' time - past, present and future in a consecutive and immobile order - can still be used as an important philosophical and creative element to help us understand the impact of the English presence (and impositions) on indigenous cultures; to think about history and the present in a different light, and to inspire visions for the kind of future we want with more creativity and empathy.

Latin American mestizo artist Anairda, coordinator of Feminist Fusion, chose this concept inspired by her experience witnessing the social and cultural effects of colonialism in indigenous and mestizo communities of the South, and the input from indigenous world-view on community cohesion, partnership with nature, politico-spiritual vision, the importance of the feminine and the responsibility in co-creating a way of life that aligns with all of that.


THE PROJECT

The MEMORIA project includes 6 sessions of Feminist Fusion addressing topics related to the Mayflower anniversary through public talks, conversations and games, plus our usual line-up of female performers and comunal craft.
The final MEMORIA session will be a special show, with a visual exhibition created by local female artists and a theatre performance devised by young people.
The project aims to offer a platform for the contributions and voices of women and young people on Plymouth's history and its impact in our present times; we want to also encourage a public dialogue about social diversity, politics, social art, patriarchy, immigration, colonisation, collective creative, indigenous views and an humanistic view to commemorate history and learn from it.
For this, Feminist Fusion applied and won a Mayflower 400 Community Spark funds to cover a good part of the project from November 2019. However, to reach its full potential and pay every artist and speaker fairly, we've been searching for other grants. Unfortunatelly the COVID19 pandemic has narrowed our chances.
Due to the pandemic, we also had to re-schedule and redesigned all our MEMORIA 2020 events after February 2020.

The MEMORIA sessions:
- Friday 27th September 2019, 7pm. "The Doctrine of Discovery". Talk by guest speaker Angela Sherlock, a public conversation, a line-up of artists and a participatory craft.
- Friday 22nd November 2019, 7pm. "The Oppressor and The Oppressed". Talk by guest speaker Stephanie Pratt, a public game, a line-up of artists and a participatory craft.
- Friday 21st February 2020, 7pm. "Indigenous Women: Strong. Resilient. Vulnerable". Talks by guest speakers Melinda Schwakhofer and Stephanie Pratt, a public creative conversation, a line-up of artists and a participatory craft. Anniversary Special.

Re-scheduled MEMORIA sessions:
- Saturday 28th November 2020, 7pm. ONLINE EVENT - "Two Spirit". Talk by guest speaker Sandy Leo Laframboise, group conversations and creative participation, plus a guest performer.
- Saturday 12th December 2020, 7pm. ONLINE EVENT - "Slavery, Kubler Ross and the Journey to Liberation". Talk by guest speaker Marie Dallas, group conversations and creative participation, plus a guest performer.
- Saturday 27th February 2021, 7pm. ONLINE EVENT - "Truth, Reconciliation and the New Paradigm". A panel with all the MEMORIA speakers, a public conversation, creative participation and guest performers. Anniversary special.
- Saturday 8th May 2021, 7pm. ONLINE EVENT -"MEMORIA 2020 Exhibition" - visual exhibition by local female artists and public conversation with the artists.
- Saturday 10th July 2021, 7pm IN-PERSON EVENT - "MEMORIA 2020 Performance" devised and performed by A level students from Lipson Co-operative Academy, and a public conversation with the performers.

For more details on each event, please check our facebook page: Feminist Fusion

TOWARDS the show:

The Visual Exhibition: A call out for 5 female visual artists to create new work to be part of a joint exhibition that will be launched at the MEMORIA show. We will support artists with resources, materials and curating, plus a small commissioning fee. See the exhibition here.

The Theatre Performance: Six sessions of theatre workshops for A level/16+ students led by theatre-maker Andy Blackwell to create a special performance based on the Mayflower anniversary. This will include students of any gender identity interested in participating. See details about the performance here.

The Participatory Craft: Our annual craft project in which anyone attending the sessions is encourage to participate, consists on footprints-shaped canvas to be written or painted as the evening unfolds. The footprints represent the way we want to walk our past, our present and our future as community and they will be displayed in the final show and exhibition. You can see most of the craft at our unique MEMORIA publication here.


THE MEMORIA LEGACY:

a) One publication, unique edition, documenting the whole project.
b) One short video documenting the project.

See them at: MEMORIA LEGACY