shefarers of ipswich
secret agency
Dates:
Open Ship: Tue 17 - Thu 19 Oct 2023, 11:00 - 18:00
Sat 21 Oct 2023
Opening performance by The Silver Darlings: 13:30
Shefarers of Ipswich (live and livestream): 14:00
Location:
Live - Sailing Barge ‘Victoria’, Ipswich Waterfront. This performance concludes with a procession from Ipswich Waterfront to The Hold
Livestream - The Hold
Tickets: £15, livestream free
Photos by SPILL and Alexander Ward
Presented in partnership with Suffolk Archives.
Generously supported by National Lottery Heritage Fund, Swire Charitable Trust, Kulturstiftung des Bundes, and the Harwich Haven Authority Fund through Suffolk Community Foundation.
Additionally supported by the Ganzoni Charitable Trust, Scarfe Charitable Trust and the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights. Many thanks to players of the National Lottery and our anonymous donors.
Sponsored by Ipswich Maritime Trust.
In 2023 we celebrated the ‘shefarers’ of Ipswich - women sailors, port workers, sailmakers, tugboat pilots, boat-builders, sea swimmers and more - asking them: is there a feminism of the water?
The history of the seas is almost exclusively a history of men. Men have sailed the seas, worked in the sea trade, gone to war. While women have fought with considerable success for gender equality on land, the maritime world seems far behind.
For the culmination of Shefarers of Ipswich, a major new commission for SPILL Festival 2023, artist collective secret agency hosted a special banquet performance on a historic Thames sailing barge on Ipswich’s Neptune Marina, featuring local shefarers and telling their stories.
You could explore even more of Shefarers of Ipswich by visiting the Open Ship exhibition and drop-in research hub from Tue 17 to Thu 19 Oct.
MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST:
secret agency is an open performance collective, mainly based in Hamburg. They produce situations and institutions that appear to be fictional but then nonetheless withstand the test of reality.
Shefarers of Ipswich is the latest iteration of secret agency’s Women of the Seven Seas project. Its international events have taken place in Hamburg, Barcelona and Lagos, and will soon journey to Indonesia.
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