Heaven Crawley Profile picture
Sep 14, 2020 11 tweets 7 min read Read on X
'The artist and the professor, the mother and the wife' is now online for all to see. This collaboration with @LauraNyahuye of @maokwo was one of the most intense experiences, personal or professional, of my entire life and my feelings about 'going public' are mixed ...(1/?) Image
On the one hand I feel incredibly proud (a word I generally avoid) of the beautiful things that we have created together. I'm overwhelmed by the beauty in fact. The images. The words. These were created in the intense lockdown days and they take me back to that place...(2/?) Image
The lockdown forced us to stop and reflect on our lives and the work we both do in ways that would never have happened otherwise. Being forced to 'Stop', to have the opportunity to 'Breathe' was a major theme and recurring theme of our collaboration (3/?) theartistandtheprof.art.blog/2020/07/03/sto… Image
But even as I write this I feel a sense of guilt. For so many people COVID-19 has brought pain and death, loss of life and livelihood. Especially for those with whom @LauraNyahuye and I work. Making beautiful things feels frivolous and self-indulgent (4/?) theartistandtheprof.art.blog/2020/07/15/mak…
And then there is the vulnerability. Laura and I have explored themes and issues that I have never spoken about publicly...what it means to be a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a survivor of domestic violence. These experiences make us who we are theartistandtheprof.art.blog/2020/07/15/cra… (5/?) Image
This idea of being cracked but not broken, crushed but not defeated was another major theme of our collaboration. Some people see the cracks and think that they can exploit them. Interpret them as meaning that we are somehow weak or damaged (6/?) theartistandtheprof.art.blog/2020/07/17/com… Image
Which links to idea of vulnerability...that by 'going public' with our experiences, our feelings, things that make us who we are we can no longer hide behind our professional identities as 'The artist and the prof'. For that we make 'No apologies' (7/?) theartistandtheprof.art.blog/2020/07/16/no-… Image
Finally, there is hope. Hope that the solidarity/human connection @LauraNyahuye and I experienced during our collaboration can be extended, built upon. We are exhausted by COVID-19 and everything it has come to mean. But we recognise our resilience (8/?) theartistandtheprof.art.blog/resilience/
So that's it. Take a look. And if you want to join @LauraNyahuye and I in finding new ways of supporting each other and recognising our strengths as women, wives and makers of beautiful things please be in touch. We like this way of working (9/9) theartistandtheprof.art.blog/2020/07/12/way…
I should have said that outputs from #theartistandtheprof will be included in a #coventrycreates digital exhibition with work from 17 other collaborations between Coventry artists/researchers for @Coventry2021 More on that soon! #morethanalabel #beyondcategories #moreincommon

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More from @heavencrawley

Mar 13, 2021
Like everyone else who leads/works with @GCRF funded projects, I'm reeling from news that our budgets are to be slashed and grants terminated. We learnt about this through a public announcement on the @UKRI_News, no-one even had decency to consult with or advise us beforehand 1/
This announcement was made, ironically, on the very same day that we made our ResearchFish submission, a hellish bureaucratic system of reporting our outputs, engagements and impacts so that we can 'prove' to @UKRI_News that we are doing what we said we would do with the money 2/
Our @MIDEQHub ResearchFish submission ran to more than 250 pages of publications and engagement activities with impacts on policy debates, training, media outputs and more, all carefully documented, detailed and entered into the system 3/
Read 19 tweets
Sep 10, 2020
On Monday 14th Sept we will be launching #theartistandtheprof, an artistic collaboration between myself and @LauraNyahuye @maokwo exploring themes of #migration #identity #belonging and what it means to be boxed in and categorised as #migrants #women #mothers #wives...(1/?) Image
Funded by @covcampus @warwickuni as part of @Coventry2021 this collaboration has been undertaken entirely online during the #COVID19 #lockdown It's been a powerful and challenging experience for many different reasons. We've laughed and cried, written and woven... (2/?) Image
For both of us this is the first time that we've had an opportunity to #stop #breathe #pause and reflect on the ways in which our own and societal expectations of gendered and racialized roles and responsibilities have shaped our lives #morethanalabel #beyondcategories (3/?) Image
Read 9 tweets
Sep 2, 2020
My latest @scmrjems article with Katharine Jones draws on our #MEDMIG data to unpack the idea that the places people move to outside Europe are always 'in-between' and never intended as 'destinations', an idea that feeds into anti-immigrant discourses...
tandfonline.com/eprint/MCBPYQ2… Image
Treating these places as 'in-between' reinforces the notion that 'everyone' is heading to Europe when they very clearly are not. In reality most people remain in the same region and rebuild their lives in these places. The notion of 'transit countries' serves the same purpose
Our evidence suggests that it is only when life becomes untenable and a decision is made to move that these places take on a state of ‘in-betweenness’, most commonly as part of a personal narrative mobilised by migrants to make sense of the broader arc of their life experiences
Read 4 tweets
Jul 21, 2020
Yesterday's speech by @antonioguterres hit so many nails on head. #COVID-19 is shining spotlight on global injustices and issues ignored for decades: inadequate health systems; structural inequalities; environmental degradation; the climate crisis un.org/sg/en/content/…
#COVID19 is not 'the great equaliser', we are not 'all in the same boat' Image
Importantly @antonioguterres points to long term inequalities associated with colonisation and the unequal incorporation of countries into the global economic system as a key causal factor. It's rare to have such explicit acknowledgement of how we came to be in this mess Image
Read 6 tweets
Jun 18, 2020
Never tried to live tweet from an online event but 4th UNESCO Chair currently being live-streamed contains powerful and moving material which speaks to me strongly in the context of #RefugeeWeek2020 and more generally and needs to be heard so I’m going to give it a try... Image
The words and experiences of refugees frame everything that’s being said but within that the gendering of refugee experiences, of human experiences of forced movement, relations between mothers and children Image
Integration is such a difficult concept, one of things that the team tries to do - and has done over previous lectures - is to introduce new ways of thinking about integration. The theme for this year’s lecture is ‘contemplative seeing’ as a way of reflecting on these processes
Read 13 tweets
Apr 24, 2020
If you didn’t get chance to watch Arundhati Roy live in conversation with @imaniperry last night then you should absolutely check out the @haymarketbooks discussion on why #COVID19 is the portal into one of two worlds...
Image
The pandemic and its consequences provide an opportunity for reflection and a chance to undo the terrible rounds inflicted on the planet - and other humans - by the human race. But there are others who want to deepen the injustice and inflict more and more damage #ArundhatiRoy
We may be a common humanity but #COVID19 is not affecting everyone in the same way. The virus has worked like an x-ray explosing the bones of injustice in our societies and amplifying the inequalities #ArundhatiRoy
Read 4 tweets

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