Women's Views on News |
- Installation: Ydessa Hendeles in London
- Women’s healthcare in fight for survival
- NHS campaigners petition for exemption change
| Installation: Ydessa Hendeles in London Posted: 21 Apr 2015 08:45 AM PDT
The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), in London, is currently presenting 'From her wooden sleep…', a major new work by the German-born Canadian artist-curator, Ydessa Hendeles. In this work, Hendeles draws together disparate elements to compose a tightly choreographed tableau vivant. Central to this installation is a remarkable and unique collection of 150 wooden artists' manikins assembled by Hendeles over twenty years. Made in a time range from 1520 to 1930 and in scale from palm-size to life-size, the manikins surround a lone figure that is standing exposed in their collective gaze. The intense focus of the scenario suggests a community gathering – perhaps in a courtroom, or at an auction, an anatomy lesson or a drawing class. From her wooden sleep… continues Hendeles's exploration of difference and diversity, in particular of the way representation and distortion, appropriation and assimilation filtre group and individual identities. The title of the show is taken from Florence Kate Upton's best-selling 1895 children's book, The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg, about the nocturnal adventures of two wooden peg dolls. Created and named by Upton, the Golliwogg in this story was the first black protagonist in English picture books. He became a much-loved character among children, and his far-reaching popularity was superseded only by the teddy bear's. He also bridged the gap between popular culture and high art by inspiring the most popular movement of Debussy's Children's Corner, a solo paino suite first performed in 1908. In the mid-20th century, however, the character became a controversial symbol of racism, and the name became a racist insult. Like earlier Hendeles curatorial compositions, From her wooden sleep… graphically realises her interest in the way crazes define culture and social dynamics – for better and for worse. Hendeles is a pioneering exponent of curating as a creative artistic practice. Blurring the line between collector, curator and artist, she has fashioned her own distinctive space in the contemporary art world. In 2003, Hendeles guest-curated Partners at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, a 16-gallery exhibition that included her own work, Partners (The Teddy Bear Project). Built around an archive of typologies of family-album photographs and vitrines featuring photographs of teddy bears with their original owners, the project was remounted in Noah's Ark by the National Gallery of Canada in 2004 and subsequently in 10,000 Lives, the 2010 Gwangju Biennale, South Korea. Recent exhibitions include: Marburg! The Early Bird! at the Marburger Kunstverein in 2010; The Wedding (The Walker Evans Polaroid Project) at Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York in 2011; and THE BIRD THAT MADE THE BREEZE TO BLOW at Galerie Johann König in Berlin in 2012. The ICA calls From her wooden sleep… ‘an extraordinary development in a singular career’. Hendeles was born in 1948 in Marburg, Germany, to Polish-Jewish parents who had survived Auschwitz, and emigrated with her family to Toronto in 1951. From her wooden sleep… can be seen at the ICA until 17 May. For times and how to get there, click here.  |
| Women’s healthcare in fight for survival Posted: 21 Apr 2015 02:39 AM PDT
Cuts to the NHS and to services like Sure Start mean that women's healthcare in the UK faces a real fight for survival. Evidence suggests that Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government policies in general are increasing health inequality, and research has linked areas affected by reduced public spending with lower life expectancy at birth. And women are taking the hit especially hard. The Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust, for example, is one of only two NHS trusts in the UK that is dedicated solely to women and babies. Every year around 8000 babies are born at the hospital, 1000 of whom will need specialist care in the neonatal unit there. Currently faced with a £7.2 million deficit it could face closure within the next 10 years. The hospital covers some of the most socially deprived areas in the UK, and provides key services to some of the most vulnerable women in the region. The voluntary doula project that offers support for vulnerable pregnant women is one, as is the Liverpool BAMBIS breastfeeding support scheme. Ten out of the 17 Sure Start Centres in Liverpool narrowly avoided closure earlier this year. As things now stand they only have a two-year reprieve; the campaign to keep these centres open in the long-term continues. This close-it-down scenario is being played out across the UK; hundreds of children's centres currently face closure, and hundreds more could face being shut under a post-election Conservative government. Speaking at the launch of their health manifesto, Labour party leader Ed Miliband pledged that Labour would provide one-to-one midwife care if they win the general election. Miliband said: “One midwife, fully committed to you, that’s what we mean by one-to-one care – from when you go into labour, to when your baby is safely delivered, keeping you secure throughout the most important journey you will ever take." The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) estimate that an extra 3000 midwives would be required to make this promise real. And Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham promised to keep Liverpool Women's Hospital open if Labour wins the election. "It's not going to be allowed to close under a Labour government," he said. "I know the Women's well and I know people are very loyal and proud of it, but it is in difficulty at the moment and we need a plan that's supported more broadly." However, these promises and solutions seem dependent on Labour winning the general election. The reality TV series One Born Every Minute, filmed at Liverpool Women's Hospital recently, may deliver the 'feel good' factor about giving birth in the NHS, and TV dramas like 'Call the Midwife' give a glossy sentimentality to childbirth, but the reality is that government cuts mean fewer staff working longer hours for less money, resulting in a system in which the quality of care will inevitably drop. And women's health, especially that of women with a lower socioeconomic status, will suffer.  |
| NHS campaigners petition for exemption change Posted: 21 Apr 2015 02:00 AM PDT
Campaigners fighting for the NHS against the privatisers are being sorely hampered by the difficulty of finding out what has been done with our money and property. This is partly because of an extraordinary exclusion from the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the "Commercial Confidentiality" exemption. This exclusion permits people questioned to refuse to provide information on public spending where it has been done through private companies, covering the situation when full transparency could reduce the profits of one of the commercial interests benefiting from public spending through outsourcing. It is, the campaigners 999 Call for the NHS point out, unreasonable that this preference of companies for secrecy is allowed to trump the requirement for accountability and transparency in outsourcing of public services, contrary to the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act. Please sign here to insist that Freedom of Information on public spending is enforced. This 'refusal' is a charter for abuse, a means to conceal the raiding of public coffers in secret, the campaigners say. If companies want to receive public funds then they should be willing to waive claims to commercial confidentiality and submit to full public scrutiny under FOIA. Corporate providers of public services are always on weak ground. It is cheaper to deliver public services through teams of direct employees than by contracting services out to commercial outfits that must reserve part of the available funding to reward their own investors, and that demands a market to be administered which already costs annually well over £10 billion of the money put into the NHS. This figure could rise to above 30 per cent of total spending, as in the US healthcare industry we are now importing to the NHS. Running services in-house also improves service quality, because managing services via commercial contracts means a loss of everyday oversight and control, as we saw with the advent of MRSA after hospital cleaning was outsourced in the 1980s. Now medical care itself is finally being outsourced, carried out by private contractors but still under the NHS logo. According to recent reports, "more than half" of all cataract operations outsourced to one private provider paid from NHS funds failed, as against 0.2 per cent in the NHS. Yet such contractors don't have to tell us what they are spending our money on, or where they have been cutting corners to improve their financial results, because "their right" to "commercial confidentiality" somehow trumps any rights NHS patients might have thought they had to accountability, competent medical care and safety. In fact the secrecy that this "commercial confidentiality" exemption enables is systematically abused. This issue is at the heart of the corruption which ails us, the campaigners say: corporations and "their rights" dictate the actions of our supposed democratic representatives, and the country is being asset-stripped at high speed. It is time to point the spotlight on the fate of our money, and on why we are banned from finding this out in respect of commercial deals that appear, in principle and in practice, to be against the public interest. Please sign the petition. You can also help if you: E-mail your contacts with a copy of this text or an equivalent explanation, concluded by a request to sign and to circulate this petition onwards as widely as possible; Place the petition wording (as above) on websites wherever you are able and link to it; Consider rewriting the cover note to cover your own difficulties with FOIA inside or outside the NHS and then forward it to activists working on those issues. This will create a family of feeds into the petition from different interest groups who all identify the FOIA 2000's "commercial confidentiality" exemption as in contravention of the spirit of the Freedom of Information law; Print the petition and an explanation and stick it on notice boards etc near where people wait – kettles, coffee machines, lifts, queuing areas, waiting rooms for example; Print the petition and an explanation and send copies to everyone you know who is not on e-mail yet, with a request to get the word out among all parts of society. Include the link so that computer-literate relatives may assist them and join the petition's spread; Tweet it with a request to sign and retweet; suggested hashtag #FOIAcoverup Use Facebook to inform and mobilise signatures and distribution. Ask relatives to do it for you if you don't use social media yourself; Brief journalists and other professional communicators about the abuse of "commercial confidentiality" in our public services; If you are standing for National Health Action or another political party, please mention this issue on your speaking platforms and written communications. It's a great example of why we urgently need a political alternative. Why not bring the matter up at any local hustings, political or public interest meeting?  |
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