Book Review: Dazza Scott, Sabotage: The Story of the Hunt Saboteurs Association (Hunt Saboteurs Association, 2021). In 2023 the Hunt Saboteurs Association will mark its 60th anniversary. Sabotage shows that it has plenty to celebrate. For all the horrors, joys, tears, and moments of farce brought to life in this book, the hold of bloodsports is much diminished since the organisation was founded in 1963. There is a long tradition of opposition to fox hunting and other cruel sports, an expression […]
In April 1986 a group of women in Bristol who considered themselves both feminists and survivors of psychiatric treatment came together to found the Bristol Crisis Service for Women (BCSW). Organised as a collective and with scant funding, the group drew on the feminist practice of consciousness raising to develop its work. It also took inspiration from the contemporaneous Survivor Movement, that rejected the medical model of mental illness, condemned the barbarity of much psychiatric […]
Not A BRHG Event
A Night of Solidarity with Myanmar takes place at The Cube on 2nd March from 7.30pm - get tickets here. Early arrivals will enjoy some 'Myanmar snacks' cooked up by members of the Myanmar community in Bristol. Hosted by the local #WithMyanmar support group on FB, it's aim is to spread awareness, information & understanding of the current situation in Myanmar (aka Burma), and generate support for it's people resisting the Military Coup there on 1st February 2021. That Military Coup followed […]
Not In An Event Series
Were you ever involved in Bristol's squatters' movement? Join us on Sunday 6th March 2-4pm at BASE (14 Robertson Road, Easton) for tea, cake and a chat around a map to capture memories of squatting in Bristol. So much of what we love about Bristol was made possible by squatting. Bristol Squatted is a new project aiming to give squatting the space it deserves in the city's history and ask what the role is for squatting in Bristol today. For more information see here and bristolsquatted.org
Raymond Williams’s novel, The Fight for Manod was first published in 1979. As we know, 1979 was an important year, seemingly a watershed year. In this year Margaret Thatcher was elected, and Ronald Regan launched what was to be his successful presidential campaign. Yet the social forces that pushed them into prominence and the form of capitalism on stilts now commonly known as Neoliberalism didn’t of course suddenly emerge overnight from nowhere. Like deadly toadstools, the mycelium that brought […]
Not A BRHG Event
The second Bristol Radical Bookfair, postponed from last December, takes place at the Exchange venue on Sunday 20 February, from 11.30am to 3.30pm. All are welcome at this event, presented by Active Distro, and featuring stalls with new and second hand titles from radical publishers, zine makers and activists, in addition to stalls from local campaigns groups. It's still cold and dark outside, stock up with some good stuff to read! See the FB event for more info. This is a great opportunity to […]
Not In An Event Series
Otherstory will be presenting a first screening of our cinematic puppetry performance Taking a Holiday on Sunday 20th February at 7.30 pm. This online event will include a live post show talk by Professor Lois Bibbings (from the University of Bristol) on the historical context to the story told in the film. There will also be an opportunity to meet and put questions to the puppeteers. Taking a Holiday tells the amazing story of the secret beneath a Bristol bike shop. It is a story of […]
Filming people in distress for his documentary ‘Earth Will Fall’, shot in a favela in Brazil, raised difficult ethical issues for documentary maker Sam Liebmann. He will discuss, with video clips, the problems of representing people fairly and with dignity while filming in areas of high social conflict. Book tickets here.
Since the early days of documentary filmmaking, directors have been trying to put workers on film. Award winning filmmaker Colin Thomas will examine some of these and consider his own attempts in the light of the comment by one of his subjects, car worker Bill Pritchard, who told him that he was “chasing daydreams". Book tickets here.
Bristol-born politician and intuitive creative artist Cleo Lake is driven by the idea of utilising creativity, dance and expanded performance to aid civic engagement and to reframe storytelling as a resilience tool to embed cultural knowledge, empathy, understanding and cohesion. Cleo is currently working on the collaborative ‘Citizens Researching Together’ programme on the strand: Decolonising Memory – Digital Bodies in Movement. Book tickets here.
