The Ladies' Room

The Ladies’ Room March 28th 11am - 8pm Stevenson Square 1

Celebrating the radical history of Stevenson Square through Mancunian women past and present.

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Historically Stevenson Square was declared the meeting point for protest marches, political speeches and newspaper readings.

Many of the city’s most radical figures have been its women and so, as part of the Wonder Women month long celebration of women, The Ladies’ Room presents a carefully curated day of talks, workshops, tours and performances delivered by current women, and in dedication to historical ones.

The long boarded over underground toilets and bus laybys in the centre of Stevenson Square become the focal point of a day long programme of events in which you are invited to question the status of the square as a social space, its heritage values, and through the square’s usage during The Ladies’ Room it begs the question – how can we make better use of the square?

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Poet Lauren Bolger will be hosting a two part event for this year’s Ladies’ Room.

It’s a Man’s World

Manchester as a Canvas

Women in the media. Join us for a lively panel discussion hosted by four inspiring and prominent women in local media today as we discuss what it means to be a women in, what continues to be, a male-dominated field.

Featuring Helen Pidd (Northern editor, The Guardian), Elizabeth Alker (music reporter, BBC 6 Music), Beccy Meehan (Presenter, North West Tonight), and Jennifer Williams (politics and social affairs editor, Manchester Evening News). Helen Pidd will lead the discussion.

Author Emma Jane Unsworth in conversation with Helen Pidd discussing Manchester as a canvas. Unsworth’s first novel ‘Hungry, the Stars and Everything’ won a Betty Trask Award from the Society of Authors and was shortlisted for the Portico Prize 2012. Her short story ‘I Arrive First’ was included in The Best British Short Stories 2012 (Salt).

She has worked as a journalist, a columnist for The Big Issue, and a barmaid. Her second novel ‘Animals’, which has been optioned

by BAFTA-nominated producer Sarah Brocklehurst and awarded development funding by the BFI. A discussion in a pizza parlour - complete with free pizza.

– 12pm - 1:30pm Ply, 26 Stevenson Square

– 2pm – 3pm Slice

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Whispers in the Parlour Room

Footsteps on the Dancef loor

For ‘Whispers in the Parlour Room’ Bolger invites you into her unusual vision of a powder room, both a velvety and informed discussion, drawing on the idea of women meeting in secret, mainly in parlours, tearooms and WCs of Stevenson Square, to converse - weighted ideas towards art, ‘Whispers...’ aims to celebrate and reclaim the idea.

Then, the talks will be followed by, ‘Footsteps on the Dance Floor’, a live music event, presenting short, fresh, bursts of performance by female music artists and DJs, selected for their unique sense of voice including Mahakali, Gashes, Mother, Greta Duitkute and Tekla, with more to be announced.

Creating an intimate yet public space for a vibrant selection of short talks to take place.

Talks led by young women, that take a D.I.Y approach to making music and literature in Manchester.

– 3pm – 5pm The Fitzgerald speakeasy 11 Stevenson Square

It’s an opportunity not only for the speakers, but for you the audience, to discuss, network and feel inspired by the self-journeys, advice, reading and practices of Celia Wickman (editor of Milk and Honey), Kamila Rymajdo (prose writer) to name a few.

– 12pm – 3pm 21 Hilton Street (Former Koffee Pot site)

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She Choir Manchester

Northern Quarter Walking Tour

This contemporary choir are a non-auditioned, female only choir based around the City Centre and Manchester University. The choir perform self-arranged songs, some you might have heard of, some you might not have.

Join Hannah Barker (Head of History at University of Manchester, Chair of Manchester Histories) and Hayley Flynn (Skyliner, City Curator at National Trust) on a guided tour of the area. Hannah will lead on the history of Stevenson Square and the wider area, whilst Hayley, informed by the knowledge of Majolica Works, will explore the meaning of the public art, and the series of events that led to the creation of the NQ as we know it today.

– 6pm – 6.30pm The Rooftop Project Entrance on Stevenson Square will be manned by volunteers to help you find your way

– 11am – 12pm Meeting on the pop up green space on Stevenson Square

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Stevenson Square Pop Up Park

The Stevenson Square Concept

Throughout the day a section of the square itself will be transformed into a green social space where grass replaces roads, table tennis replaces buses, and a bar stands where there was once a bus stop. In celebration of the square’s heritage Civic Engineers and PlanIt-IE will create a place for you to have you say; harking back to those days of the square as a meeting point for political protest, and a place to simply rest, play, and to sit and consider the space itself.

Join Stephen O’Malley of Civic Engineers and Lindsay Humblet of PlanIt-IE as they present their concept for the future of the square.

You are invited to discuss their ideas for public and social space as well as your own.

Could pedestrianisation ever work?

Drinks and table tennis provided by 2022NQ, and further refreshments on hand from that ice cream van for adults Ginger’s Comfort Emporium.

– 12pm – 6pm Stevenson Square

Planit-IE are a creative studio who value healthy places to live, work and play. Much of their work lies in the exploration of the relationship between man and nature/ development and landscape.

Civic Engineers, having previously worked on the Ancoats Urban Village, are skilled and passionate about the public realm, and are particularly interested in the impact of Engineering on the environment, and in exploring ways of improving the integration of engineering and infrastructure into the built environment.

– 3pm – 4.30pm 21 Hilton Street (former Koffee Pot site)

Out House live art Out House is an outdoor project space for public art. Located on Stevenson Square, every three months the three blocks that were once public toilets, will be reworked to provide new inspiration for anyone and everyone. Join Out House on the day to witness the newest transformation of the blocks with live art by local female artists Bryony Jackson, Tasha Whittle, Caroline Dowsett and Amy Coney.

– 10am – 6pm (continued Sunday) Stevenson Square

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The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces A rooftop film screening. Join The Rooftop Project for a screening of the iconic study

by William H. Whyte. This event will be hosted high on a rooftop garden overlooking the square. This highly influential film in architecture and planning circles analyses the success and failures of urban spaces; observing the natural order of spaces and the way people move through them.

The Rooftop Project is ‘a mass collaborative effort’, a co-designed social space for Manchester’s Northern Quarter - an initiative created by a mix of people passionate about greening disused, hidden spaces of the city centre.

24NQ and Sheila Bird kindly gifted the rooftop to bring together tenants with local residents, businesses, community groups and

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organisations. Together with The Curiosity Bureau, A New Leaf and NQ Greening The Rooftop Project has grown into a unique, codesigned process that can be programmed for film nights to star gazing, yoga sessions to urban gardening workshops.

Accessible until December 2015 The Rooftop Project has become a social space for people to gather, to bring to life the ethos of the project. Inspired and informed by those involved as a space to relax, escape and gain a sense of perspective.

– 6:30 – 8pm The Rooftop Project Entrance on Stevenson Square will be manned by volunteers to help you find your way

Open Rooftop Afternoon, and Kite Making During the afternoon you will be free to visit the rooftop garden to simply relax with a drink and check out the views, or to take part more creatively. You will be able to watch the Manchester Urban Sketching Group in action as they take residency on the rooftop before moving around the square throughout the day, but if you want to harness the power of nature then come along and join our kitemaking workshop and fly your finished piece from up high.

– 2pm – 4.30pm The Rooftop Project Entrance on Stevenson Square will be manned by volunteers to help you find your way

Public Space, and the city’s rooftops A discussion. Rebecca Taylor - Founding Partner of The Curiosity Bureau, Doctoral Researcher of HighWire, Lancaster University and Trustee of A New Leaf will be presenting with Beth Knowles Co-Founder of A New Leaf and Director of Symmetry Creative an overview of The Rooftop Project so far and will share in some of the greening initiatives of Manchester’s Northern Quarter that are challenging the way we see public space across the city.

– 5pm – 5.45pm The Rooftop Project Entrance on Stevenson Square will be manned by volunteers to help you find your way

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The Art Bar

Thanks

Creators of concept cocktails that play with the social space within exhibitions and events. The Art Bar is a functional artwork devised in a bid to explore, and often exploit, the growing social space within various contemporary art realms. Based for that day at The Ladies’ Room hub at 21 Hilton Street, this former greasy spoon will become home to The Art Bar who will curate a selection of cocktails inspired by the stories of the city’s radical women. Grab yourself a tea cocktail inspired by tea heiress, advocate of modern theatre and admirer of the occult Annie Horniman. Hornibag’s Iced Tea, anyone?

With thanks to the community and the businesses around the square including The Fitzgerald, Eastern Bloc, Ply, Hatters Hostels, Slice, and Fred Aldous, and to the following partners for their commitment and dedication to the cause without whom the day could never have happened.

– 12pm – 6pm 21 Hilton Street (former Koffee Pot site)

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Civic Engineers, PlanIt-IE, The Curiosity Bureau, 24NQ, The Rooftop Project, Lauren Bolger, The Neighbourhood, Rhythm, Majolica Works, Manchester City Council, A New Leaf, NQ Greening, Out House, The Art Bar, and The Sheila Bird Group.

Please note some events are ticketed, although all events are free.

Visit our website for more information, or call 0161 234 9980

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The Ladies' Room is an event by National Trust and forms part of the Wonder Women festival. @NTCityCurator #TLR2015 16