DIY: 2019 – Tim Jeeves & Lena Simic: The Party Calls You

Between climate breakdown, austerity and Brexit, the UK is facing its greatest political crisis in decades. What place is there for artists within the UK’s political institutions?

Deadline for applications: 2pm, Thursday 20 June
This DIY is supported by LADA as part of Managing the Radical

Project summary

Can artists usefully engage with mainstream politics? More specifically, what political potential emerges when artists act within the context of councils and / or Parliament? Can artists meaningfully work inside these sites or is compromise inevitable?

Growing from our own practices’ transition from an anarchist / feminist tradition to one where we spend a disproportionate amount of time as local party activists, these workshops, will explore the intersection between mainstream politics, radical arts practice and social change. The workshops will take place over four days in Liverpool and London and will include forum discussions, a lecture on artists/politicians as well as a visit to Liverpool Town Hall and the House of Commons and meetings with our MP and city councillors. The final part of the workshop will see us produce our own Manifesto.

How to apply

This DIY is open to artists, producers, curators, writers, and anyone else who has an interest in the political potential of Live Art.

To apply please follow the link below

Dates, times and location

Liverpool: 6 – 7 July, Dan Carden MP’s Constituency Office // Liverpool Town Hall
London: 8 – 9 July, LADA // The House of Commons

The artist

Tim Jeeves has been making performance work for the last 15 years, with a particular focus on how narratives around disability and health are formed and shared. He has a PhD from Lancaster University and between 2011 and 2016, directed the ACE supported Giving in to Gift festival, ‘an ongoing conversation around ideas of generosity and reciprocation’.

Lena Šimić is a Reader in Drama at Edge Hill University, a co-organizer of the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home and Labour Councillor for Anfield Ward.  Originally from Dubrovnik, Croatia, Lena identifies herself as a mother of four boys, transnational performance practitioner, pedagogue and scholar. Lena is currently researching contemporary performance and the maternal, mainstream politics and environmental performance.

Since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2015, Lena and Tim have become increasingly involved in their local Constituency Labour Party (CLP) in Liverpool Walton. Tim is Treasurer and Lena is currently Chair of the CLP. With others, Lena and Tim coordinate the Artists4Corbyn artist collective, whose most recent intervention saw them take a boat to the Burbo Bank wind farm, where they performed a text about taking wind turbines into public ownership. As a direct result of this, the CLP and Liverpool’s Local Campaign Forum passed a motion on Public Energy that received the support of the Mayor and called on Liverpool City Council to move towards making this policy.

For questions about this DIY, please contact the artists.