Preview: ALICE MAY WILLIAMS 'And Now...Grants for Irish Lesbians!'

Tintype is pleased to announce that Alice May Williams is our project space artist for 2017.

And Now...Grants For Irish Lesbians!, features and builds upon Williams’ previous work On The 73, the short film she made for Tintype’s Essex Road program. On The 73 is a tale of unrequited love set on the Essex Road, told through verse and images from seminal lesbian film and tv moments of the 90s and 00s.

Transitioning from the confessional to the communal, And Now....Grants For Irish Lesbians! looks further back into the lesser known queer histories of Essex Road and Islington, such as the basement-bar lesbian hangout of the former Carved Red Lion pub. Williams’ project is to assemble an informal history of a time and a place.

The title of the show is drawn from a 1985 headline in the Evening Standard, reporting on opposition to funding of 'minority' group activities. Here, the headline is reclaimed as an exhortation to an alternative future in the face of current orthodoxy.

The work takes inspiration from progressive political movements of 80s Islington, such as London Friend and the pioneering work of Islington Council in supporting gay rights. Williams draws together elements from existing archives as well as more informal, personal narratives.

A large-scale text work painted directly onto the gallery wall, a massive fabric banner hanging from the ceiling, paintings and video – Williams use of the project space invokes manifesto, response, re-imagining.

The Tintype project space is an annual event in which an artist is invited to use the gallery either as a studio or working space followed by a show, or for a specific project. Previous artists have been An Gee Chan, Tom Woolner, Florence Peake, Beth Collar, Holly Slingsby, and Nicole Vinokur.