The Wise Woman Manifesto
The Wise Women manifesto was created by Dr Gillian Dyson-Moss, Dr Anne Schiffer, Dr Joanna Leah, and Lizzie Coombes, academics at Leeds Beckett’s Leeds School of Arts, to give voice to creative female researchers, especially those who feel frozen out as older women or as ‘early career researchers’.
The project has been funded by Research England and the Leeds Beckett Equity and Inclusion Research Fund.
The manifesto launched at the end of January 2023 with an exhibition and series of performances at Leeds School of Arts. The exhibition consists of portraits of female academics in the school and is installed in both Broadcasting Place and Leeds School of Arts buildings. It will remain in situ for the next 12 months and is set to expand to include more women in the school, including non-academic staff like cleaners and administrators.
Dr Gillian Dyson-Moss, Senior Lecturer in Performance at Leeds School of Arts, said: “I am moved, inspired, grateful and angry that this project has touched so many women in the school: moved because it felt like a small action which has already caused a ripple effect; inspired because women are developing conversations and actions of their own in response to Wise Women; grateful for the collaboration, generosity and warmth, and angry that we still need to have this discussion in arts and higher education in general.”
The four lead researchers said: “Our aims are to apply Anne’s human-centred approach to qualitative research and ability to examine needs according to access and empowerment and to develop Gillian’s practice-based research in the representation of women, lived experience as a knowledge base and the tension between professional and domestic identity. We collaborated with Dr Joanna Leah who uses manifestos as part of her pedagogy and adapted her methodology to enable dialogue and collaborative authorship of positive statements for change.
Lizzie Coombes’ collaboration was through the application of an approach to portrait imaging which enables the subject to be in dialogue with the photographer, empowering and strengthens the subject’s sense of visibility and institutional worth.”
Dr Gillian Dyson-Moss is delivering a new series of Wise Women conversations and podcasts for LEEDS 2023 Year of Culture, meeting with leading, visible, and invisible women who contribute to the success of Leeds culture.
Leeds Beckett University is a Principal Education Partner of LEEDS 2023, playing an active role in the year of culture that will showcase the city’s creative industries and communities. It will give the university’s 28,000 students, 2,800 staff and local communities the opportunity to make, perform, sing, speak, play and learn.