Up In Arms

Up In Arms is a social practice artwork in which Anna Maria Nabirye and Annie Saunders invite two participants – a Black woman* and a friend of her choice – to re-embody and re-create Dan Wynn’s iconic portrait of Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Gloria Steinem and talk about what it means to them. The re-creation of this image acts as a portal to open space for challenging, transformative conversations, led by the artists.

The resulting audio and video recordings and portraits have formed a large-scale multimedia exhibition (De La Warr Pavilion, 2023), a live documentary performance (VBKO 2019, Dortmund International Women’s Film Festival 2019, De La Warr Pavilion 2023), a performance lecture (Delfina Foundation 2018) and the forthcoming publication Up In Arms, a sourcebook on collaboration and intersectionality, designed by Morcos Key and published by Slimvolume.

‘Honesty and humour pervade the process – a journey that the two artists are undertaking in catalysing conversations between friends. The chatter of every day experience is punctuated by sudden, profound utterances which strike a chord and are memorable… It feels healthy, of the moment and needed.’ – Artlyst

Up In Arms has been developed at The Showroom Gallery, London, UK; MANA Contemporary, Jersey City, USA; The International Female Film Festival, Dortmund, Germany, VBKO, Vienna, Austria, Noorafshan Mirza Studio, Istanbul, Turkey, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, NYC, USA.

*Throughout Up in Arms, the term ‘women’ includes all women – whether trans, cis, non-binary or gender non-conforming.