As associate artist with Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art I was invited by curator Katie Bruce to undertake a period of research and development in response to Domestic Bliss. My work has centred on uncovering the lesser told queer histories of the Scottish witch trials, beginning with a likely ancestor – born Isobel Rutherford. Known locally to be a healer, they were accused of consorting with the devil and of changing their name to Viceroy, killed along with ten others accused of witchcraft.

My research takes a queer lens to Silvia Federici’s writing on Gossips: women-led communities built on shared labour, healing and intergenerational care "a source of a strength unmatched in the modern era". She frames the witch trials and the destruction of autonomous women’s collectives as part of a colonial project tied to the advent of capitalism.

I have invited groups of women and other marginalised genders to work with me in exploring and responding to these histories, and asking what our contemporary Gossips might look like.

Hold Your Tongue
Drawing workshops looking at witch’s branks, scold’s bridles and Jougs from the museums’ collection - misogynist instruments of torture designed and pioneered in Scotland. These brutal devices were used disproportionately on working-class and poor women who were seen as troublesome, outspoken or disruptive — literally designed to silence and shame, often so cruel that they would lacerate the tongue.

Scream in Domestic Bliss
A collective scream recorded in the Domestic Bliss exhibition at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art during Women’s History Month.

Counterfeiting the Office of Husband
A clay workshop and discussion responding to records of Scottish witch trials where queer women’s home were raided. Objects described as “prosthetic phalluses” or “ane piece of clay formed be hir to the liknes of a mans priwie member” were seized and used as evidence against them. Queer women and trans people were accused of “counterfeiting the office of husband” considered a crime along with witchcraft.
Workshop participants were invited to render women’s sex toys in clay as a radical response to gendered and homophobic violence, through queer joyous reclamation.

For more on this work read my guest blog post for the Gallery of Modern Art
(https://galleryofmodernart.blog/guest-post-hold-your-tongue/)