Brides and Madonnas against the Bomb: feminist activist art practices towards nuclear disarmament and more

This paper examines the performance and socially engaged practice of Sister Seven, a group of artists and poets in elastic configurations involving Gillian Allnutt, Shirley Cameron, Mary Michaels Monica Ross, and Evelyn Silver. Between 1981 and 1984, Sister Seven produced over 20 posters for nuclear disarmament from feminist perspectives, which were exhibited at a range of established and non-traditional venues, from church halls and libraries to the Glastonbury Festival and the Greenham Common women’s peace camp, as well as art galleries and colleges. Delving into the intersections of the individual and collaborative practices of members of Sister Seven and the performative dimension of the posters, I will consider some posters alongside the performances by Cameron and Silver, such as The Virgin Mary Society (VMS) and Brides Against the Bomb (BAB). Albeit made by some of the same artists for the same cause, the posters, which include documentation of performances and instructions for DIY performance, and Cameron and Silver’s performance practice adopt styles of antithetical affective charges, with the former often opting for pacifist solemnity and the latter for satirical irreverence. Focusing on BAB (developed out of the earlier performance You Too Can Marry Charles, on occasion of the televised wedding of the then heir to the English throne to Diana Spencer), and VMS (which targeted the pious maternalism of women’s pacifism before Greenham), I explore the role of feminist countercultural iconoclasm in transforming the apparently single cause of nuclear disarmament to a call for a different life on earth, beyond extractivist heteropatriarchy.

Paper presented in Panel 5: Performance activating protest