Work out
This project questions how institutions deal with sexual consent
The team have been working together through studio research, study groups and collaborative workshop sessions to explore themes of consent, sex education, masculinity and male privilege. Their research has been focused on working within the context of King’s College London’s sports teams, specifically with male identifying athletes.
Through their collaborative approach they brought in Alex Bowmer and Gareth Esson to help develop this research. Alex is a specialist in sports medicine who has worked in athletic wellbeing and mental health support within a range of settings including the NFL and Harvard University. Gareth founded Tailor SRE and has delivered projects on masculinity, gender, sex and relationships with young men from a range of backgrounds including gang members, young fathers and victims of abuse.
Their research and workshops aimed to create the conditions for an open, plural, non-normative discursive setting, mapping possibilities for an inclusive sex (re-)education for students, respectful of sexual and gender identities, and ethnic and religious diversity. Departing from Phoebe’s practice, using print as protest, the team attempted to merge academic, activist and artistic methodologies and perspectives to explore sexual politics in institutional spaces (particularly higher education institutions) through innovative and inclusive pedagogy.
Phoebe plans to continue developing this body of work, working with communities in England and Wales, creating a new series of prints, video and live performance work.
Project film
Project team
Phoebe Davies is an artist and producer. Her practice is defined by its location and context, investigating and exploring how people perceive their social framework. Her outcomes are often project dependent, including; constructed social spaces, live performances, video, audio and print works. Often she works with and in response to individuals and communities, generating work through collaboration and collective action.
Her work is often ephemeral and chanced upon, existing in pedestrian spaces as well as in galleries and institutions, including: Tate Britain and Tate Modern (London), Whitechapel Gallery (London), Arnolfini (Bristol), Tramway (Glasgow), Fierce Festival (Birmingham), South London Gallery (London), Camden Arts Centre (London), Art Licks Weekend (London), Steirischer Herbst (Graz, AUT), Assembly (Portland, USA) and SA-UK SEASONS 2015 (Johannesburg, ZA). Phoebe is an Artsadmin artist and is part of the Bedfellows research collective. She is currently a Social Practice Fellow on the British Council’s International Cultural Exchange US Program.
After studying International Relations at Sciences-Po (Paris) Dorothée Boulanger completed a Master’s in Gender Studies at the London School of Economics. In 2012 she undertook a PhD in History at King’s College London with Patrick Chabal, focusing on the literature and history of contemporary Angola.
Dr Alana Harris joined the Department of English at King's College London in 2015, having spent six years in Oxford as the Darby Fellow in History at Lincoln College and before that as a British Academy Research Development Award post-doctoral researcher (and Hardie Fellow also at Lincoln College).
Following her first careers in corporate law and the civil service, funding from the Newman College Archbishop Mannix Travelling Scholarship and the University of Melbourne Edith and Rae Bennett Travelling Scholarship allowed her to undertake her MSt and DPhil in Modern History at Wadham College, Oxford. During this doctoral research, she also held Lectureships at Hertford College and Exeter College, Oxford and was a co-investigator on the Oxford Leverhulme Diaspora Programme (2011-2016).
Dr Harris is a member of the Editorial Board of British Catholic History (CUP), and The London Journal (T&F) a Steering Committee member for the Women’s History Network, and has acted as a historical consultant for the BBC and the Young Vic.
Work Out is a collaboration between King’s College London’s Department of History and artist Phoebe Davies, brokered and supported by university's Culture team in partnership with Somerset House Studios.