Join us November 4th for our Festival of the Accused and Light source memorial performance at The British Library.
Talks- 10am-17.15- Schedule Below
Purchase a Day Pass here.
Light Source Performance-6pm Free.
10:00 – 18:00: Screening Room: Live Art Performance at the British Library
11:30 – 12:30: Rituals: Performance Art and Witchcraft
13:00 – 14:00: Witchful Thinking: The Wise Woman's Handbook
13:00 – 14:00: The Bideford Witches: John Callow and Shami Chakrabarti in Conversation
14:30 – 15:30: Witch-Hunt: A History of Persecution
16:00 – 17:00: A New Coven: Witches in Contemporary Fiction
16:15 – 17:15: Witches of Scotland at the Festival of the Accused
18:00 – 19:00: Light Source Finale: Performance and Memorial Reading
Light Source is a programme of 12 monthly talks and workshops exploring witch hunts and ritual performance hosted by artist Amy Kingsmill. Light Source brings light to lost histories of persecuted people, primarily women, and honours them. It explores the use of body performance techniques and approaches them as an expanded context that includes the practice of queer people and women, while creating a space to share these techniques and histories.
List of upcoming talks
GraceGraceGrace: Reclaiming the Crone or “If I’m not in on Friday I may be dead’.
Rescheduled to-Tuesday 25th January due to venue closure in December.
Please note the following talks for 2022 are subject to changes due to Covid.
Bones Tan Jones: Power 'Povera'
Considering witchcraft as empowering and accessible for those without economic resources and how this can be applied to live art practices.
Wednesday 23th February 2022
Witches of Scotland
Thursday 31st March 2022
Porscha Jean: Sirens - Allure & Alarm
Allure and Alarm. Using and raising voice through song
Thursday 27th April 2022
Ron Athey - Queer Communion
Ron Athey discusses queer ritual within his iconic performances.
Thursday 26th May 2022
Amy Kingsmill Light Source Performance
and Day Festival of selected talks and workshops
- British Library, June 2022
Future events not yet on sale subject to change.
Previous Talks
Videos will be hosted online- please check back.
Ronald Hutton: Witch Hunting old and new.
Professor Ronald Hutton explores the realities behind Witch Hunts historic and present.
Tue 29th Jun
Marisa Carensky: The Incredible Bleeding Woman
Marisa Carnesky discusses her work with her project The Bleeding Woman using live art to challenge ideas around menstruation.
Thurs 29th July
Leticia Vasquez:
Anthropologist and tattooist Leticia Vasquez discusses body rituals and folk traditions.
Thursday 26th August 2021
Bonnie Bakeneko: Bodily Alchemy
Transmutation, transformation and transcendence. Queer trauma processing through magick and live art body ritual.
Thursday 30th September 2021
Charity Kase: TRANSformation Class
Queer Witchcraft for Transforming Witches as an antidote to Transphobic Potter Mania.
Transforming via transfiguration via costume, ritual, make up, drag and body modification to embrace and enhance your queer body- becoming our own myths, monsters and fairytales.
Wednesday 13th October 2021 6:30pm -8:30pm
Chao-Ying Elizabeth Rab: The Power of Fetishisation
Considering and Critiquing the female body as fetish/ totem developing ways to harness that power through work with performer and artist Chao-Ying.
Thursday 25th November 2021