Described by Ottolenghi as the next champion of Middle Eastern food, Lebanese chef Bethany Kehdy made waves when she took up a residency at Carousel in Marylebone earlier in 2016. Now she’s back, and ready to serve up fresh flavours in a takeover of one of East London’s trendiest restaurants, Jago.
Born in Houston to a Texan mother and Lebanese father, Kehdy spent much of her childhood in Lebanon where she experienced the atrocities of the civil war. When her father moved her family to safety in the mountains, Kehdy was exposed to nature in its rawest form, and she spent much of her time watering orchards and working on the harvest. It was here that she first developed her culinary abilities, learning to make traditional dishes from her grandmother and aunties.
She has since developed an international following, and has released an award-winning cookbook ‘The Jewelled Kitchen’. In her latest London pop-up, Kehdy will bring a fresh syntax of flavours and spices to guests over five courses. With a menu that includes sour cherry kebab nests, whipped hummus with duck awarma and tamarind & fenugreek mackerel khoresh, this is the must-have ticket for foodies: get them while they’re hot.
Tables available from 6pm until 9.30pm, from November 7th through 11th, book here.
Founded in New York in 1985, the anonymous art collective – the Guerrilla Girls – are finally getting their own, dedicated show. Set to commence this October at London’s Whitechapel Gallery, it is a long-awaited spotlight on over three decades of important work they have done in highlighting the staggering inequalities that take place both historically – and currently – in the art world.
Though the group has seen members come and go over the years, one thing unifies: all participants take the names of dead women – Frida Khalo, Georgia O’Keeffe – and conceal their identities with gorilla masks when appearing in public.
‘Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into The Met. Museum?’, 2012, Courtesy of the Whitechapel Gallery
Speaking to The Guardian earlier this week, Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Gallery reiterated the real need for such an exhibition to take place, and further demonstrated why the Guerrilla Girls are so vital. “I was just at the Kunstmuseum in Basel where they have just rehung the entire collection from 1900 to the present and I think there are five women.” She said. “Sadly it is still an issue.”
‘It’s Even Worse In Europe’, 1986, Courtesy of the Whitechapel Gallery
Entitled ‘Is It Even Worse In Europe?’, the new show will feature famous works such as the 1986 inspiration behind the aforementioned title, as well as ‘Do women have to be naked to get into the Met museum?’ and ‘Pop Quiz’. However, the large crux of the exhibition will be based on the results of 400 questionnaires that the Whitechapel Gallery have commissioned the group to send out to European museum directors, including their own.
‘Pop Quiz’, 2016, Courtesy of the Whitechapel Gallery
In a public statement, the Guerrilla Girls said: “With this project, we wanted to pose the question, ‘Are museums today presenting a diverse history of contemporary art or the history of money and power?’ Our research into this will be presented at Whitechapel Gallery this fall.”
Let’s see, shall we?
‘Guerrilla Girls: Is it even worse in Europe?’ will be co-curated by Nayia Yiakoumaki, and runs from 1 October 2016 – 5 March 2017; entry is free.
International Women’s Day is a tricky thing to illustrate. Is there an image that sums up a gender? Something pink? Something ‘girly’? Would an inspirational quote that fits into a little square, or a depressing statistic about female-specific abuses and injustices be the right thing to go with? How, exactly, do you put a marker on approximately half of the global population?
Reflective of the vastly complex aspects of what being a woman is to most, poetry seemed like a good thing to go with. Poetry built with anger, but also humour, intelligence, common sense and hope for a more enlightened future. Poetry that aims to unify all in one, very basic, experience.
If you don’t know The Period Poem by Dominique Christina, it’s time you learnt it off by heart. If you do know it, watch it again.
The UK’s first and only festival of feminist theatre is returning for a third year, with a line up including porn industry refuseniks, a celebrated 15th century cross-dresser, a Bruce Springsteen loving male alter ego, a mother and baby performance duo and teenage activists.
The star showing will be the London premiere (until Saturday 3 October) of Louise Orwin’s latest work, A Girl and A Gun (pictured above). It aims to explore the use of images of girls with guns on film as a means of attracting interest, referencing Jean-Luc Goddard’s well-known assertion that “all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.”
Elsewhere, Hula House (Dates and times tbc) from Permanently Visible is inspired by true accounts and stories obtained from interviews with sex workers and women at The English Collective of Prostitutes. The show is an immersive, interactive performance featuring dark comedy, physical theatre and audience participation.
Themes of gender identity, drag and transgender will be particularly prevalent; Break Yourself (Thursday 1 October at 8pm), will see Ira Brand experimenting with what constructing a male alter ego allows her to say and do, while Joan (8-10 October at 7.30pm) will feature Drag Idol UK Champion 2014 Louis Cyfer in a one-woman show inspired by the story of Joan of Arc.
With a plethora of events until mid-October, the Calm Down Dear festival continues to create a space to discuss feminism in the dramatic sphere.
To get in the summer mood, the NYC Young Feminist Giving Circle (NYFem) are hosting a festive evening celebrate their patron feminist, Frida Kahlo, at the New York Botanical Garden.
You’ll be able to stroll through Kahlo’s beloved Casa Azul reimagined in the Conservatory, see rare works in the Art Gallery and enjoy live music and performance art, all while enjoying a complimentary Modelo Especial draft beer or a Jose Cuervo Tradicional margarita.
After a self-guided tour, bask under the stars to learn more about NYC Young Feminist Giving Circle and the work they do to fund feminist-led human rights work.
A post-apocalyptic action movie would not usually warrant a mention on Twin, but it specifically caught our eye for a post on feminism in Hollywood.
Men’s rights commentators from website Return of The King called on right-minded males to boycott the movie because of the feisty Furiosa, played by a smoking hot Charlize Theron. His main complaints were that Theron ‘spoke a lot’ during the trailers and ‘barked orders to Tom Hardy’s Mad Max…when nobody barks orders to Mad Max.’ Theron, in true kick-ass fashion, responded by calling on film-makers to “stop misrepresenting women.”
This has resulted in a social media storm, with both naysayers and supporters taking to various platforms to share their thoughts. The most recurrent opinion is that the film is excellent – so perhaps we’ll put aside our stilettos to make a trip to the cinema in the near future.
This is just the latest in a series of outcries against sexism in film, with Kristin Stewart also commenting on gender bias this week. Charlize Theron, in fact, recently made headlines by negotiating a deal to get the same £6.5m salary as her co-star Chris Hemsworth in the Snow White and the Huntsman sequel, firmly cementing her as a Twin grrl and feminist icon.
While these are certainly shocking revelations about La-La Land, it seems that our favourite starlets have the matter well in hand.
For more feminism, along with our usual fashion, beauty and culture, and to stay in the know with all the goings-on at Twin, sign up to our new newsletter here.
At aged 72, clad all in black and with messy hair, Judith Bernstein may not strike you as particularly political. But searching her name on Google rapidly proves otherwise: she is listed repeatedly as a feminist, psycho-sexual artist, with several references to her work being so erotic that it was censored. She was a founding member of A. I. R. Gallery, the first gallery devoted to showing female artists, and an early member of Guerrilla Girls, Art Workers’ Coalition and Fight Censorship. Bernstein’s oeuvres d’art sit at the intersection of pop, feminism and protest: it seems fitting that now, with the current resurgence of pro-female feeling, Mary Boone Gallery in New York is holding a major exhibition of her work.
Voyeur, curated by Piper Marshall, will feature pieces selected to highlight the way Bernstein confronts conservative gender politics with sexual aggression. The war-time phallus has been a recurring theme for the artist since 1964, but this exhibition in particular will focus on female genitalia, which Bernstein insists on calling the ‘angry cunt’: “I like to use that word. I like to rub it in…it takes the rawness away.” Works include Crying Cuntface, where the vagina is a head with horn-like cock eyes, and Quattro Cunt, a grid of four open faces shooting phallic-eyed glares at each other.
Voyeur at Mary Boone Gallery, from 7 May to 27 June.
Sneakers and running shoes have been an unexpected trend that has spread like wildfire in both the fashion circles and on the high street, and it seems that many consider them to be well and truly here to stay. Well, that’s what lifestyle retailer Pam Pam thinks, at any rate.
Last week, they launched the first women’s only sneaker store in the UK, 1,500 sq foot space located in Bethnal Green, featuring 10 footwear brands including adidas, Reebok and New Balance. Not limited to just footwear, the store will be home to accessories and clothing from a wide variety of expertly curated, well known and independent labels, including the Australian brand Vanishing Elephant, Bethnals and Penfield.
The store’s founders, Bethany Heggarty and Rio Holland, hope to enrich women’s lives; aside from their tightly edited selection of clothing and accessories, they will be providing different opportunities, such as yoga classes, workshops, music sessions and cultural events.
Trainers, clothing, yoga and female empowerment – a fashion and lifestyle concept that’s not just for kicks.
Pussy Riot’s Nadya and Masha are in London tonight for their first UK event since imprisonment. The feminist punk rock band members will be talking to Luke Harding, discussing their time in prison, campaigns for women’s rights, political freedom and reform of the justice system, and also how they became a thorn in the side of one of the world’s most powerful men.
Did you know that 1 in 5 women experiences sexual assault in their lifetime? Or that, on average, a woman earns 22 per cent less than a man for doing the same job?
You might find these statistics shocking. But what shocks you more – these outrageous inequalities, or hearing five 6-year old girls dressed as princess tell you the hard facts, peppered with ‘fuck,’ ‘shit’ and any other expletive you can think of?
Pro-LGBT equality, anti-racism and anti-sexism T-shirt company FCKH8.com’s latest campaign demonstrates that society currently seems to find the exploitation of women easier to handle than seeing their darling little girls swear.
The real kicker comes when you realise, according to the stats, one of these girls will be raped. And just to really hammer it home, a 12-year old boy joins in at the end, also dressed as a princess – yet no one comments on how the video might affect him.
Potty-mouthed princesses, it seems, are the very best call to action.
ELLE has teamed up with Whistles to create a capsule collection of pieces that are all emblazoned with ‘This Is What A Feminist Looks Like’. The slogan was created by the historic Fawcett Society, the UK’s biggest equality campaigning group, and has been worn by well-known feminists such as Tracey Emin, Kirsty Wark and Shami Chakrabarti.
The T-shirt from the range is available to buy now from the premium high-street brands website, and the rest (sweaters, phone cases and a clutch) will be released on the 30th of October, with all proceeds going straight to the Fawcett Society.
Karl Lagerfeld, fashion innovator – and psychic? In light of current events, the Chanel fashion show on Tuesday was even more on point than usual. The Boulevard Chanel, constructed down to the very last detail including puddles and panes of glass, was the elegant backdrop to a revolution. Of course, Lagerfeld actually conceived the idea for the latest show many months ago, taking France’s love for la revolution as inspiration.
Distinct parallels can be seen with the infamous manifestations of Mai 68. Back then, the smell of both personal and political freedom was in the air, which Lagerfeld translated into his clothing for his SS15 collection. The catwalk was a riot of colour and print, with 60s and 70s style separates dominating the silhouette. The collection was not tied down to a single colour, pattern nor shape, celebrating our precious liberty and independence to choose. No doubt the feminist movement of Mai 68 would approve.
Earlier this year actress Emma Watson was named a U.N. Women Goodwill Ambassador, and over the weekend gave a passionate speech on gender and feminism at the U.N. headquarters in New York to launch the HeForShe campaign. She talked about the many misconceptions of feminism, how it can be seen as a dirty word and she pushed back against campaigns such as Women Against Feminism, but her main goal was to ignite male support, stating that feminism is not a single gender issue. She calls for men and boys everywhere to become advocates for ending the inequalities that women and girls face globally. Emma said in her speech:
“I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive.
Why is the word such an uncomfortable one? I am from Britain and think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights.”
To find out more about the HeForShe campaign, head to heforshe.org
Yesterday marked the start of the feminist film festival Bird’s Eye View here in London. Running until Sunday 13th April, this week has a jam packed schedule of films, documentaries and events, all championing female talent.
One event we think would be of real interest to Twin readers is Fashion Loves Film at the ICA on Friday. To celebrate the 10th year of BEV, female filmmakers across the world will explore how images of fashion reflect culture and identity in a selection of short films. Highlights include Lena Dunham’s brilliantly quirky Best Friends (Rachel Antonoff Fall 2013); SHOWstudio Head of Fashion Film Marie Schuller’s exploration of Asian Couture; Kathryn Ferguson’s Irish fantasia Mathair, plus a selection of shorts by Miu Miu. A real treat!
To kick off the new year, The Feminist Library will be hosting a variety of talks, workshops and story-sharing as part of the recently launched Women’s Studies Without Walls — an initiative set out to encourage further exploration into feminist issues through learning and sharing skills, experience, and information. This weekend’s events will focus on the topic of ‘The Personal is Political’ and will feature film shows, feminist fiction writing workshops, women’s self defence classes and a wide range of open discussions.
WSWW commences this Saturday followed by a weekly series of evening events at the Feminist Library. For further information or to view the full program visit feministlibrary.co.uk.
Taking its title from the concept of traditional women’s magazines constantly degrading us due to lack of designer wardrobe/überly attractive partner/perfected physical appearance, KnockBack Magazine is an A5-sized package of feminist fun.
Having launched its debut issue with the tagline “The magazine for women who aren’t silly bitches on a diet”, the publication with tongue in cheek humour and razor sharp wit is currently on its sixth issue.
Twin caught up with contributions editor Hilary Hazard to talk about modern feminism, independent zine making and the joys of not taking life too seriously…
As a self-described “anti-Cosmopolitan”, how did KnockBack Magazine come about and what is the mantra behind it?
KnockBack (KB) was started because there weren’t any magazines talking to us. Sure we wear high heels and mascara, but we also have ideas and think being mean about someone because they look bad is worse than looking bad. We value good manners and good times and we were bored of being patronised by women’s media. We also wanted to show that ‘light hearted’ doesn’t have to mean ‘idiotic’ we can do low-brow and intelligent and good looking. We can, and we did.
What does feminism mean to you today?
I really don’t know anymore. I thought I had it down and it was just about respect but then a proper feminist kicked me in the shin and now they make me nervous.
KB aims to occupy the middle ground between political feminism – which is all female circumcision and rape statistics* – and women’s pop culture, which is all deodorant and celebrities. They are the two extremes of the female experience, KB is the happy medium.
*not a million miles from the comment I made just before getting kicked in the shin.
Issue themes have ranged from Hardcore to Smoke and Mirrors. How do you decide on the concept of each issue and what is the process of producing an independent zine like?
We use the themes as a guideline to be ignored in the face of something better. The process is a slow one, everything has to be perfect (it isn’t) and everyone has to work hard (we don’t). The problem with working independently, with no advertisers, deadlines or money, is that when we have meetings we also have bottles of wine and parties and lie-ins and days off and roast dinners.
Who are your feminist icons?
Jane Bussman (author of The Worst Date Ever), Tank Girl and my Nan, because they’re fearless and funny and they work hard. My Nan got alopecia when she was 27 so spent her whole life bald as a melon. When we were kids we’d wait until she was in the shower and then steal her wig so she had to chase us while we ran away screaming. She is a tough old broad, but she is also confident and content and that’s a massive challenge for modern women, even skinny ones with pretty hair. Most women spend their whole lives thinking they’re fat and ugly and comparing themselves to people who are thinner and prettier, my Nan just got on with it.
Jane Bussman is a comedy writer who went to Uganda because of a handsome US aid worker and subsequently wrote a book that somehow manages to bridge the gap between comedy and horrific war crimes, corruption and a child army (which is a f*cking big gap). And I like Tank Girl’s shoes.
We find feminist icons in women who are cool to each other and are proud to be women and are good at it. The KB hero is Tina Fey (Liz Lemon), because she’s funny and she loves sandwiches.
Who is the typical KB reader?
Students doing PhD’s in women’s studies, and the editor of The Spectator.
There is always a humorous tone to KB, is this an attempt to put a bit more fun back into the publishing industry?
It’s partly because funny women are something we set out to celebrate, and we really don’t take ourselves seriously at all. But also if we did straight down the line feminism stuff then only feminists would read KB, this isn’t for them, they’ve got forums all over the shop. Plus we’re funny women and it’s ours so it would be weird to make it serious.
What can we expect from the next upcoming issue?
A long wait, a snazzy cover and some jokes (but not as many as we’d like because half the team had babies or got married and everyone’s too exhausted to stay angry).
Last but not least, what are some KB words of wisdom to live by?
If it’s not funny, don’t do it, if it’s not free don’t eat it and f*ck cupcakes.
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