Yesterday on Ujima – Sculpture, Gender Stereotypes & Dirty Computer

Yesterday’s show was a bit thrown together due to my being in Oxford the night before, but I think I managed to make it work. That’s thanks in part to two great guests, and in part to the inimitable Janelle Monae.

My first guest was Harriet Aston who is a fellow member of a feminist SF discussion group based in Bristol. She’s a sculptor working mainly in industrial paper. She makes large figures that don’t yet move, but with enough magic might be persuaded to do so. We talked about how people view sculpture as compared to paintings, about theatre and the Greek Chorus, and about Harriet’s upcoming show at Centrespace. And because we are geeks we also talked about Catherynne M. Valente’s Space Opera, which is just as wonderful as everyone says it is.

You can listen to the first half of the show here.

In part two my guest was Natalie from TIGER (Teaching Individuals Gender Equality & Respect), a wonderful Bristol-based organisation that goes into schools and colleges teaching about gender stereotypes and how to resist them. TIGER has been running an art project with local young people that is going to be exhibited at Easton Community Centre for a month from the 19th. I will be one of the speakers at the launch event on the 18th. Natalie and I spent quite a bit of time talking about toxic masculinity and the need for a men’s movement to combat it. Obviously we also talked about those silly Trans Exclusionary people (who are neither Radical nor Feminist).

You can listen to the second hour of the show here.

The music for the show came entirely from Janelle Monae. I played the whole of (the clean version of) her new album, Dirty Computer. I make no apologies for that, it is all wonderful.