Pantry in Practice

This workshop focuses on a creative and personal response to Pantry, the curatorial research publication.

Minerva Works

Thank you for signing up to attend Pantry in Practice, we look forward to seeing you there.

If you are no longer able to attend, please let us know as soon as possible so we can offer your place to someone else. The workshop has a capacity of nine participants, and we want to make sure spaces are used fairly. We have also arranged lunch for attendees and would like to avoid unnecessary food waste.

Thank you, and we appreciate you keeping us updated if your plans change.

Following the launch of Pantry, the research publication by The Lilac House (Marta Marsicka and Jazz Swali), this workshop taking place at Grand Union (Birmingham), invites curators and cultural workers to return to the conversations it opened around precarity, structural inequality and the emotional realities of curatorial labour.Building on the earlier panel discussion, this session which will be led by Aaisha Akhtar focuses on working collectively with the ideas behind Pantry and translating them into creative and personal approaches for sustaining curatorial practice from the margins.Through discussion and shared exercises, we'll explore how Pantry can function as a tool.Afternoon lunch by The Early Bird Bakery, will be provided and participants will receive a free physical copy of Pantry.

<h2>About The Lilac House</h2>The Lilac House is a queer, feminist, and working-class curatorial counter-practice by Jazz Swali and Marta Marsicka. The Lilac House is concerned with: <ul><li>The precarisation and erasure of marginalised curators from the arts</li><li>The omission of curators from national and public discourse on creative capital</li><li>The mental health and well-being of marginalised curators</li><li>The need to imagine and construct curatorial futures for those on the margins</li><li>The value of solidarity and sustainability through collaborative practice</li></ul> Through The Lilac House, we’re creating space for critical dialogue, research, resistance, and joy.

<h2>About Aaisha</h2>Aaisha Akhtar is a Birmingham-based curator, writer, and producer. She currently serves as Artistic Lead at Ort Gallery (2021 – present), where she works with artists and creatives, supporting them in their professional development and artistic practice via warmth. She oversees all aspects of programming, including curating the exhibitions programme and Hayati, a Muslim-centred open mic event in Birmingham showcasing poets and performers from within the community. Beyond her role at Ort Gallery, she is a custodian at Birmingham Resistance Library.She has worked with various arts organisations and continues to contribute to cultural initiatives across the Midlands. Recent projects include collaborations with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, More Art Inc., and ATHAC, among others.Her interests include, but are not limited to, anti-colonial/alternative and care-centred approaches to making, producing, and engaging with art and literature, as well as pop culture, the gaze, disability, language, libraries, love, and emotion.

<h2>About Grand Union</h2>Grand Union is situated within Minerva Works, a complex of art spaces and businesses in Digbeth. Minerva Works is on Fazeley Street, just a short walk from Birmingham city centre and Moor Street Train Station. Grand Union is located on the second floor in Unit 19 of Minerva Works. For entry to the space, you can press the button marked ‘GRAND UNION’ on the intercom by the blue door. Grand Union on access into their building "Unfortunately we do not currently have a working lift. We realise this means we are not a fully accessible space. We are in the process of redeveloping a new building which will have lift access.If you are hard of hearing or D/deaf and cannot use the intercom, please ring the buzzer three times in a row and a member of the team will come down to meet you.Gender-neutral toilets are available.Please contact us in advance if you need help accessing the gallery, or to find other ways to see our work."

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Pantry in Practice