Reclaim: Lunchbox Sessions

Bring your lunch and settle in to the Barnfield cafe for a fizzy, inspiring lunch time event. Hosted by local creative Hannah Mumby, Lunchbox Sessions will be happening every weekday lunchtime throughout the festival, bringing you a vibrant programme of talks, author readings, creative activities or artist spotlights. A drop-in event, no booking necessary. You bring the lunch, we provide the brain food!

Please note, the Barnfield Theatre bar does not serve food and you are very welcome to bring your own from home, or purchased elsewhere. The bar will be open for hot and cold drinks, cakes and crisps.

Babes in arms and children are welcome all Lunchbox Session events.

Monday 9 June: Hannah Mumby – Untangling Meaningful Collaboration

Join artist and creative facilitator Hannah Mumby for an interactive lunchtime session using the Co-Production Oracle, a card deck co-created with the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, that is designed to help us engage with the complexity of collaboration. You’ll hear about the principles of co-production and then have the chance to try out the card deck to see if it can help you untangle questions you might have about how to collaborate better.

Tuesday 10 June: Yara El-Sherbini

Yara El-Sherbini is half of YARA + DAVINA, a social practice duo who create ambitious public artworks that respond to site, context and audience. Unfailingly inventive, they use formats from within popular culture to make works which are accessible and playful. Using formats such as Arrivals and Departures boards, football, manhole covers (WOMAN-WHOLE), to lollipop ladies, they root their works in the everyday, using a lightness of touch and humour to make works that are both poetic and universal.

They have shown work extensively around the world to include a mini golf course at the 56th Venice Biennale, CUE art foundation, and BAM, in New York, among many others. A selection of their current commissions include Old Diorama Art Center with Camden Council, UP projects, The National Trust, Clandon Park + Lightbox Gallery, Woking and Policy Lab, Manifest, and 101 Outdoor arts.

Wednesday 11 June: Menopause Café with Sharon Pavey

Sharon Pavey will be holding the space on Wednesday lunchtime as we offer an opportunity to talk all things menopause and peri-menopause. Sharon is an Exeter based qualified counsellor and experienced facilitator who runs Menopause Support Groups locally.

Bring your lunch along from 1pm – 2pm where there will be an opportunity to engage in something creative or just chat or even listen in very small, informal groups. No booking required. Just show up.

Thursday 12 June: Ellen Wiles

What if your single best friend had a baby, you stepped in to help out, and found yourselves platonically co-parenting? How might women benefit from stepping beyond conventional assumptions about what a family should be? Join author Ellen Wiles for a reading from her critically-acclaimed new novel, The Unexpected, and a Q&A about writing, fiction, friendship, and kinship.

Ellen Wiles is a novelist, sound artist, curator, and academic. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter, and is currently working as an artist-in-residence at an environmental science centre. She is the author of four books, and is a judge for two literary prizes. She has previously worked as a barrister and as a musician.

Praise for The Unexpected:

‘Wonderful… all sorts of common assumptions about motherhood and family are turned on their head. It’s brilliant on friendship, identity, longing and resilience’ – The Daily Mail.

‘A novel that comes with a whole different way of thinking – it takes in a rich wide queer world of angelfish and allomothers, and it’s a story of real love between friends’ – Daisy Hildyard, author of Emergency.

‘Loved this clever and funny novel on the complexities of friendship, motherhood and social change’ – Anna Mazzola, author of The Book of Secrets.

‘Wiles writes with humour, tenderness and wisdom; The Unexpected is a welcome portrait of the beauty, the battle and the exhilarating reinvention of contemporary motherhood’ – Marianne Levy, author of Don’t Forget to Scream.

Friday 13 June: live music with Maz McNamara

Maz McNamara is a Devon-born singer-songwriter who has performed internationally for over a decade and whose voice has been described as ‘honey from the earth’. Her acoustic sets bring together a mix of contemporary and traditional folk, blues and original songs against soft fingerstyle guitar.

This event is part of Reclaim Festival: a week-long celebration of women in the Arts. Click the link below to find out more.

VIEW THE FULL PROGRAMME