What the #$@&%*! would you like to get off your chest?
Do you ever feel like society isn’t exactly what it should be? Are you tired or pissed off with certain aspects of it? Do you just feel like cursing and smashing the patriarchy?
In celebration of 100 years of women’s suffrage, Feminist Swearing Night comes to the UK for the first time.
This open-mic event offers an opportunity to sound off about patriarchy, politics, inequality and injustice. Participants are free to do this through sharing their personal stories, rhymes, songs, general rants or any other means of expression.The night is moderated by the founders of the Finnish feminist think-tank Hattu, Rosa Meriläinen, Saara Särmä and Johanna Vehkoo. They are joined by other special guests including Hollie McNish and comedian Elf Lyons.
Feminist Swearing Nights have been hugely popular in Brussels, Helsinki and Dublin. The concept is originally created by the Finnish Feminist think-tank Hattu and is now brought to London in partnership with the Finnish Institute in London and the British Library.
Elf Lyons is an award winning comedian and performance maker. In 2017 her solo show SWAN at the Edinburgh Fringe was nominated for the Best Show Award and the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality – alongside winning Pick of The Fringe at Adelaide Fringe and being nominated for Best Comedy Show at Fringe World Perth. She is on the BBC’S New Talent Hotlist, The Sunday Time‘s Top Comics to follow and one of British Vogue’s 20 Names of Now. Alongside being heard on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6, and writing for BBC Three Elf has been published in The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Telegraph, The Independent and Reutersamongst others.
Hollie McNish has published poetry collections, Papers and Cherry Pie, and a poetic memoir of parenthood, Nobody Told Me, winner of the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2016. She co-wrote the play Offside, which relates the 200-year history of UK women’s football, and collaborated with the Dutch ensemble, the Metropole Orkest, on her second poetry album Versus. McNish tours the UK extensively, and her poetry videos have attracted millions of views worldwide. She has a keen interest in migration studies, infant health and language learning, and gives performances of her work for organizations as diverse as The Economist, MTV and UNICEF. Her first collection for Picador is Plum, a vibrant poetry collection encompassing a life from childhood to attempted adulthood.
In collaboration with Feminist Think Tank Hattu and The Finnish Institute in London
