Margaret Harrison in conversation with Jacqui McIntosh

Harrison has been at the forefront of British feminist and activist art since the late 1960s and has used drawing at all stages of her long career to address social concerns and to place the experience of women in a wider context. The talk will explore key works she has made over the past 50 years, some of which feature in the exhibition Beautiful Ugly Violence, 2003-4, Marilyn is Dead (1994). It will also address the continuing importance of drawing to Harrison’s artistic practice and her experiences of being a feminist artist.

This discussion will take place on Microsoft Teams, 7pm-8pm on Wed 13th March 2024.  

Margaret Harrison (b. 1940) has been at the forefront of British feminist and activist art since the late 1960s. She was a founding member of the London Women’s Liberation Art Group (1970) and a key figure within the Women’s Workshop of the Artist’s Union (1972), which demanded rights and visibility for women artists of the time. Harrison has used drawing at all stages of her long career to address social concerns and to place the experience of women in a wider context. Her early drawings, which depicted scantily clad women draped over food and men in corsets and high heels, explored the objectification of women in mass media. She has produced bodies of work that have drawn attention to the exploitation of women’s labour and the rights of home and factory workers. Throughout her career, Harrison has been dedicated to making visible the violence and domination exercised against women across the world.

The Time of Our Lives focuses on the pioneering drawing practices of women artists and their impact on feminist activism from the 1980s until today. The exhibition showcases the work of key artists, examining drawing’s versatility as a medium and the ways it has been used by women to raise consciousness around social and political issues, such as reproductive justice, sexism, racism and other forms of oppression.