GIRL TALK Exhibition
Join me at the end of March for my second solo exhibition, ‘Girl Talk’, a project exploring the value and camaraderie found in women’s discussions, while re-framing gossip as a valuable tool for nurturing community bonding, information exchange and empowerment.
The project has been entirely collaborative in nature, inspired by both my own personal conversations with the women around me, and by the output from my tea party interviews with twenty-three women and gender non-conforming folk on the topic of ‘girl talk’ and the historical demonization of gossip. The objective of this project was to allow an insight into all of the clever, funny and, frankly, juicy girl talk happening across Glasgow, and perhaps share some knowledge.
The result was bringing groups of people together who had often never met before, sharing delicious gossip covering anything and everything from the intimacies of female friendship, anecdotal musings on casual sex, and the foundation on which the bonds that tie our communities rest - people talking.
In response to these interviews, I have created a body of visual art and a 50+ page magazine, exploring the conversations that took place. Both aspects of this endeavour have been truly the most fulfilling project I have ever worked on. I hope you get as much out of it as I did.
Opening Party: Join me for the opening party on Wednesday March 26th from 7-10pm. There will be tunes, refreshments and party bags for the first arrivals (what happened to party bags, let’s bring those back).
If you can’t make it along to the opening party, no stress! Come and join me from the 27th-30th for a free cuppa and a nosy around the exhibit. I want the entire output of the project to emulate the cozy living room energy of the conversations that led to it’s final output.
Dates: March 26th-30th
26th: 7-10PM
27th: 12-8PM
28th/29th: 12-7PM
30th: 12-6PM
Location: The New Glasgow Society, 1307 Argyle Street, G3 8TL
Alongside the visual work, the talented writer and actor Jess Ferrier has written and recorded a companion piece to the exhibition inspired by the same tea-party interviews used to inform the work.
You can listen to the audio piece here:
GIRL TALK
DURATION: 9 Mins 08 Seconds
VOICE ACTORS:
Zara Louise Kennedy, Georgia-Lee Roberts, Robyn Reilly & Evie Mortimer
‘The ‘Girl Talk’ audio is a companion piece for AJ’s Girl Talk exhibition, and uses a combination of verbatim speech and fictional script. It is a short audio-play in three sections - the first and last of which are a collage of verbatim phrases and moments taken from the ‘tea party’ conversations which fueled this exhibition, while the middle section is a fictional conversation I wrote in an attempt to distill the essence of girl talk - as chaotic and hard to pin-down as that may be.’
About The Writer
Jess Ferrier is a playwright / script-writer who specialises in socio-political comedy. If you like her work you can find her @jessferrier_ on instagram, or through her theatre company @sharkbaittheatre with which her third full play ‘Crocodile Tears’, a political comedy about the ethics of reality TV, will be premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival later this year.