Trigger Warning: This article and the exhibition it refers to contain discussion of domestic violence, gendered violence, sexual assault, hate crimes, homophobia and transphobia, and death.
When was the last time you said no? When was the last time that you stood up for yourself? Not just saying no to your glass being refilled at dinner, but truly making a stand. Perhaps it was the act of saying no to doing work that wasn’t yours to do, telling someone that you hadn’t finished speaking after they cut you off or maybe it was in a more harrowing situation. Hopefully you were listened to—chances are you weren’t. The Say No! Exhibition, currently on display at the Wardlaw Museum, asks us to question and reimagine what it means to be an activist and show refusal. Developed in collaboration with the Museums team and two Art History PhD students, Camila Cavalcante and Lexington Davis, traditional artwork, spoken word, and video footage adorn the gallery space.
The exhibition is fiercely unapologetic. It allows the artists, audience, and subjects to exist without resistance or refusal. The first sign of this is the Domestic Dusters installation, which involves dusters stitched with messages of what it means to be a woman and work within the domestic space. These hang in the first room you come across at the Wardlaw, the space dedicated to the history of St Andrews as an institution. Their placement is significant. So many of the figures highlighted in the history of St Andrews are men; women are absent from a significant portion of the narrative. These dusters remind us of the unpaid and unrecognized labour that often supported these supposed “great men.”
The work of Frankie Raffles is hugely important as part of the exhibition and history of St Andrews, yet before my visit to the exhibition I had never heard of her. Raffles graduated with a degree in Moral Philosophy from St Andrews in 1977 and was active in the Women’s liberation movement as a student here. She was also the first female student to ever run for the rectorship! During her career, Raffles traveled the world, spending vast periods of time in the Soviet Union, photographing women in the workplace. Beyond the confines of the Wardlaw gallery, her work is currently on display in Sallies Quad, and is certainly worth checking out.
Work from around the world is showcased throughout the exhibit, from discussing the 1917 ‘Potato riots’ in Amsterdam, Latin American street activism, and the experiences of Asian and African migrants in the UK. Poignantly, televisions allow you to watch marches organized in central London focusing on Transgender rights in fashion, where the message is clear: visibility matters. It is the people on the fringes of society: sex workers, domestic violence victims and migrants who get put on centre stage in this exhibition and it is their stories which leave such a lasting impression.
There is of course a heavy atmosphere. The exhibition tackles serious topics and stayed with me long after I left. I would recommend visiting with a friend, which is what I did, and listening to some feel good music on the way home. Whilst it was relatively quiet on the Sunday morning I visited, what was incredibly powerful is that everyone else who was in the space were men.
Sometimes, forthright feminist exhibitions and media can feel like vacuums which only women engage with. We can end up in a cycle of seeing representations of experiences which we know all too well. Seeing these issues brought to the attention of those who are not affected by them was powerful and highlights just how engaging the Say No! exhibition is. Support is provided at the end of the exhibition as well as a striking message.
The experience was a reminder that, in order to create a future that is better for all of us, we must say no to this reality.