Join researcher and artist Lorenza Ippolito at Fabrica in Brighton on Tuesday, November 8 to discuss how bodies are policed in public space and the effects this has on trans and non-binary people. Conversation Piece: Swimming for Trans and Non-Binary Bodies is a regular discussion event that explores LGBTQ+ experiences in relation to exhibition themes.
This autumn, Fabrica will present At Home in the Water, an exhibition by Vanessa Daws which has been inspired by local pioneer swimmer, Mercedes Gleitze.
Fabrica say: “Today, the world is starting to understand and recognise that the bodies we are given at birth do not always correspond to who we feel we are and what we are capable of. But what happens when these trans and non-binary bodies go swimming in public indoor pools? Some people feel their bodies do not correspond to their gender and work to change their bodies to feel more like themselves.”
Published in 2021, research by Associate Professor Dr Jayne Caudwell of the Department of Social Sciences and Social Work and Centre for Seldom Heard Voices titled Queering Indoor Swimming in the UK: Transgender and Non-Binary Wellbeing focused on transgender and non-binary experiences of recreational swimming and aquatic activity (2017–2020). It reported that transgender and non-binary people’s feelings of safety in the public space of indoor pool is not as straight forward as for cis-gendered people – people who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.
Fabrica adds: “The findings concern transgender and non-binary people’s feelings of un/safety in the public spaces of swimming pools and the accompanying display of their embodied self. These two elements of un/safety—spatiality and embodiment—are critically discussed in relation to physical activity and in/equality.”
Conversation Piece: Swimming for Trans and Non-Binary Bodies at Fabrica, 40 Duke St, Brighton BN1 1AG on Tuesday, November 8 from 6.30pm.
Free event, to book CLICK HERE