Today the parliament in Poland is hearing a bill that, if passed, could prevent women from accessing safe and legal abortion care, jeopardising their human rights. Poland already has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe and, if adopted, this would in practice lead to a total abortion ban. The bill was first brought to the parliament’s attention in 2016 but was frozen as a result of public protest. With street protests currently an impossibility due to the lock-down, this week has seen protesters rallying from their cars.

       Published on 13 April via the ‘quarantine blog’ of our friends at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, philosopher and activist Ewa Majewska and curator Natalia Sielewicz discuss feminist solidarity and the need for alternate forms of protest, the history of Polish reproductive rights activism and the possibilities for feminist art institutions in post-Covid times.

Founders of Spare Rib, a critical part of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s and ’80s, Rosie Boycott and Marsha Rowe used its glossy pages to challenge conventional gender roles through articles and creative works that theorised women’s oppression, and tackled subjects from health and childcare, to sexuality and pleasure. Letters from readers expressed the emotional toll of discrimination based on race or class and thanked the editors for providing the space where these issues could be openly explored.  

       When the UK leaves the EU, this digital archive of this ground-breaking feminist magazine will no longer be available. But you will still be able to access The British Library’s Spare Rib website with contextual essays and selected magazine content.

THIS LONG CENTURY hosts two programmes online called OUTSIDE and INSIDE featuring work by over 30 artists and filmmakers, viewable until 30 April. All past contributors to THIS LONG CENTURY, including films by The Machine that Kills Bad People’s Beatrice Gibson and Ben Rivers, are available alongside several artists featured in our programmes across the years. A wealth of great shorts is the result, from early work by Oliver Payne & Nick Relph to recent pieces by Haris Epaminonda and others. Please watch and donate.

Film programmers from festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, Black Nights and many others have come together for My Darling Quarantine, an online short film festival that enlists the help of short film practitioners from around the globe to suggest films for this curated selection, largely informed by themes revolving around dystopian realities.

I always appreciate the expansiveness of the Live Art Development Agency’s calls for proposals and commissions. For this call-out LADA will grant £1000 to two separate collaborative online residency projects. Exploring the current conditions of isolation, this residency can be about anything the two remote collaborators care to explore. The application doesn’t require a budget breakdown and can be submitted up until 27 April via written, audio or video formats, depending on your preference.

Visit artistrelief.org for more information.