Civil Rites

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. - Simone Weil

Civil Rites is a cine-poem, taking as a starting point Martin Luther King’s 1967 speech, given on receipt of his honorary doctorate from the University of Newcastle. It explores how the core themes of poverty, racism and war continue to haunt our lives.

The film visits key locations in the city’s history of civil resistance. Some have been buried beneath car parks and shopping malls. Others remain on busy streets. Some are publicly marked, others anonymous. Each location is filmed in a single fixed shot, and the whole sequence moves from dawn to dusk across the city.

The film listens to the voices from more than two dozen interviews conducted with older and recently arrived residents, housed and un-housed, community organisers, passers-by, educators and others as they think through their responses to these themes. The film locates these voices in dialogue with key sites of resistance from across the Tyneside region and across the centuries. It seeks to learn what has changed (or not) in the lives of people in Newcastle today.

The title plays on the sonic relationship between ‘rights’ in a civil and social sense, and the rituals that inform behaviour. The use of ‘rites’ seeks to encourage us to think about the repeated actions of history, both in terms of those imposed on us and the interactions of belonging, alliances, kindness and co-existence that allow the marginalised and oppressed to endure and occasionally to thrive.

'The recovery of overlooked and marginalised histories is central to understanding the possibilities in the present for future facing action. ... It is a work that is never fnished, where the process of being itself makes meaning, moment by living moment'. (Gareth Evans, Whistable Biennial, 2018)

Thank you Radical Tyneside and Prof Brian Ward.

Distributed by LUX

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ADDITIONAL content and events TYNESIDE CINEMA GALLERY (December 7th 2016 - January 22nd 2017)

As part of the Civil Rites exhibition, I included a display of Demonstration Posters from the 1970s and 1980s, loaned to us from the collection of Penny Remfry, an activist in the women's liberation movement at the time.

The display also includes the "Roots and Bootstraps" game from the 1980s. This was developed as part of a series of games to help working class people to recognise that their place in society was to with how society was structured not personal failure. The game has been loaned to us by Feminist and Anti-racist activist Pat Garrett and Jackie Collins.

There was also a collection of blank protest signs which we encouraged visitors to write your thoughts and feelings on Civil Rites, the display and the themes of poverty, racism and war.

One of my concerns was also how to make the his/ and herstories visible in practice, and this lead to a guided walk by activists Pat Garrett and Rosie Lewis, who facilitated a guided walk around Newcastle city centre activist hotspots over the last 40 years on Saturday 9 December. The walk introduced participants to a people’s history of the city, the lesser-known stories of revolution and resistance that have gone undocumented, giving a fascinating insight into the past will hopefully inspiring and connecting those involved or interested in the history of social justice activism in Newcastle.

This event was organised and supported by the Angelou Centre as part of the exhibition.

To listen to a recording of the event, please see link below.

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The Civil Rites Preview featured a panel discussion with artist Andrea Luka Zimmerman, Chandi Chopra, Pat Garrett, Rosie Lewis, Gailen Manuel, Roweena Russell and Paul Barry, with Chair Theresa Easton.

Speaker Biographies

Theresa Easton has been a council tenant in Newcastle for 17 years and helped form Millfield Tenants and Residents Association in Newburn.

Theresa has been an active campaigner with the North East Peoples Assembly, a broad united campaign group, against austerity. Theresa is a trade union member and one of the founders of Artists’ Union England, a trade union for visual, applied and, socially engaged artists.

Easton works as a printmaker & bookmaker in the Ouseburn Valley. She is currently working on a commission with Senate House Library, University London, “Queer between the covers: literature as a frame and filter of gay identities”.

Chandni Chopra is criminal defence and family law solicitor who is a firm advocate of human rights, rights of refugees and anti-public sector cuts.

Chandni is a longstanding member of Newcastle’s Palestinian Solidarity campaign, a group called north east Solidarity with Rohingya refugees and currently works for a charity called antisocialbehaviour.org supporting victims of crime and hate crime.

Pat Garrett a retired psychotherapist who is currently the north east coordinator for the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO), one of the lead UK organisations in a European funded project to use human rights as the focus for Esol training in Sweden Germany, Greece. Portugal and the U.K.

Pat is also currently on the board of trustees at The Angelou Black Women's Centre in the west end of Newcastle with a primary role around supporting the counselling service.

Rosie Lewis co-ordinates the Violence Against Women and Girls Services and is Deputy Director is Deputy Director of the Angelou Centre, a black and minority women’s centre based in Newcastle. Rosie has an extensive background in advocacy work with women seeking asylum and vulnerable children and young people having worked in both strategic and frontline roles in the domestic abuse sector. Rosie is also an experienced fundraiser and has been involved in social justice and feminist activism for over 20 years.

Rosie is currently working toward her PhD at Durham University, researching feminist black and working class lesbian U.S. literature from the late Twentieth Century and developing her theoretical work around Biomythography.

Gailen Manuel is a freelance photographer who also works for the Side Gallery as well as teaching part time free adult courses in photography.

Gailen used to be a squatter during the 80s in London and has been on many demonstrations, actively encouraging others to use their voice in the hope of helping the world to change for the better. Gailen has worked in music and photography and at Tyneside Cinema.

Roweena Russell grew up in a working class family in the south of Ireland. She began activism in the HIV/AIDS, drug and alcohol field in Dublin in 1995. She continues to work in this field today. In 1999 Roweena joined the board of the International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Youth and Student Organisation (IGLYO). She chaired the organisation from 2000 - 2002. Roweena studied sociology and social police at Trinity College Dublin. Roweena enjoys photographer, radio broadcasting and working with groups to understand how creativity as an activist tool can change communities.

Paul Barry was born Paul Najid Al Rahman Barry to an English mother and Indian father.

Paul held many positions working for the Home Office, regional arts councils and regional councils over the 70s and 80s, before becoming a Labour Councillor for Chesterfield from 1987-2003, eventually becoming Mayor from 2002-2003.

Paul also played lead guitar in Electric Silver Dancer, bass guitar for Steam Coffin and lead guitar for Axis 1971-81. He also danced in contemporary ballet at Morden Tower and established Fairkytes Contemporary Dance Unit.

Eastside Projects
This is the Gallery and the Gallery is Many Things X (6th Oct - 22nd Dec 2018)

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• https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5qnj...
• https://www.whitstablebiennale.com/proje...
• https://alchemyfilmfestival.org.uk/2018/...
• https://glasgowfilm.org/shows/we-need-to...
• https://mapmagazine.co.uk/civil-rites
• http://narcmagazine.com/news-andrea-luka...
• https://consultingartist.com/art-in-gene...
• http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/andr...
• https://tankmagazine.com/tank/2018/06/th...
• https://www.ft.com/content/0a736c8c-8e70...