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Marianna Simnett, Faint with Light, 2016. Installation view at FACT 2019. Photo: Rob Battersby.
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Ericka Beckman & Marianna Simnett

What can we learn about modern day society from traditional fairy tales?

Tue - Sun 11:00 - 18:00
Free Entry

Gallery 1, Ground Floor and Gallery 2, First Floor

Part of the Spring 2019 season

Opening in March, our new exhibition features two artists who both use technology and classic tropes of fairy tale storytelling to create artworks that are alluring and repelling, sensual and troubling.


Eminent American filmmaker Ericka Beckman and London based artist Marianna Simnett - whose work reaches across more than forty years - present strikingly different forms of visual storytelling, but share a playful approach to the body within the multi-layered fantasy worlds they create.

"an empowering show about myth and misogyny"

The Guardian ★ ★ ★ ★

Ericka Beckman uses the imagery, style and language of early computer games - as well as the rigid structures and rules of gaming - to examine the perceived need for women to adhere to societal norms in order to achieve what is expected of them. The characters depicted in her films are seen never fully succeeding in satisfying the requirements of the “game” they’re in, providing a critique of the limitations and demands placed on women in society. Both films rewrite fairy tales using the innovative technology of the 80’s to explore female identities in our post-industrial world.

Marianna Simnett’s visceral language combines mythology and surgery to create tales of morality. Themes of corruption and innocence depict illness and disease, commenting on gender divides in our cultures. Through video and installation, Simnett challenges how bodies are perceived and imagined against a repressive society of control.

"Undeniably memorable"

thisistomorrow

This exhibition is adapted from the Ericka Beckman and Marianna Simnett exhibitions curated by Zabludowicz Collection.

Red Riding Hood Landscape

Families, Performance

Fairy Tale Liberation Club

Join us for a fairy tale-inspired storytime where two stories, rewritten by women from the Merseyside Women’s Liberation Movement in 1972, will be acted out and read aloud.

Once and Future Tales - Rapunzel

Talk

Once and Future Tales

Join us for a conversation and reading group with the women who rewrote the fairy tales for the future.

Lizzie

Film

Lizzie

Join us, Writing on the Wall and LCR Pride Foundation for a screening of Lizzie.

Protolive To Use Learning Young People

Learning

Proto-Live Half Term Camp (11 - 16 year olds)

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Create your own Machinima (a real-time computer graphics engine used to create a cinematic production) videos with footage captured from the video games you play in our latest Proto-Live Half Term Camp.

Mariana Simnett Blood

Reading Group

Reading & Discussion Groups

From fairy tales to gender politics, join us for a reading group of texts by seminal female writers followed by a discussion.

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