Older Women Rock!

Abstract: In this article artist/activist Leah Thorn shares the processes and rationale underpinning ‘Older Women Rock!’, a project creating pop-up political art spaces to raise awareness and explore issues facing early-old-age women in their 60s and 70s. Through poetry, performance, retro clothes, film, consciousness-raising and listening skills, ‘Older Women Rock!’ celebrates older women, unites them across differences, challenges their invisibility and subverts society’s assumptions and prejudices about them. The project arose out of a 10-month Leverhulme Trust artist residency undertaken by Leah in 2015 at the Kent Academic Primary Care Unit, University of Kent, and the England Centre for Practice Development, Canterbury Christ Church University. The project was developed in 2017 through a Fellowship at Keele University Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Keywords: ageing; women; feminism; fashion; clothes; poetry; pop-ups

Article posted to the Journal of the British Academy, volume 11, supplementary issue 2 (Narratives of Old Age and Gender: Multi-disciplinary Perspectives)