Artists’ Film Club: Learning in a Public Medium: Library Live(s)

This live research event conceived by artist Conal McStravick and artist and activist Ryan Conrad intervenes in Stuart Marshall's catalogue essay from the ICA Video Library Guide, Marshall's curated programmes of artist's video for his 1991 ICA retrospective, and parallel activity in the UK-Canada Video Exchange Programme that drew attention to gender, sex and sexuality in moving image practice in the context of the AIDS crisis. A screening, reading and performance event revisits this material with clips and highlighted material from the original programmes and new material from the interim period that expands on a renewed focus on intersectional LGBTQI content, as well as interpersonal and autobiographical narratives regarding the notion of libraries and archives.  

Learning in a Public Medium is a series of live research events derived from the video, sound and writings of artist, activist, arts organiser, educator and writer Stuart Marshall (1949-1991).  

Conal McStravick (b.1979, Lurgan, Northern Ireland) makes solo and collaborative works to explore the histories, social practices, and economies of art and queer politics. In 2013, McStravick began researching Marshall and has since developed a series of active research events titled Learning in a Public Medium. This series explores Marshall's works, legacies and contemporary resonances as artist, activist, writer and educator through workshops, screenings and presentations.

McStravick has recently staged Learning in a Public Medium events at Hospitalfield, Arbroath, Wysing Arts Centre, Tramway, Glasgow and Concordia University, Montreal and co-organised a Stuart Marshall event at Birkbeck Institute of the Moving Image. He has appeared on panels at Glasgow Film Theatre, BFI, London and Birkbeck Institute of the Moving Image to talk about queer film and video, Marshall and the Learning in a Public Medium project. In 2017, The Showroom, London are partnering with Conal McStravick & LUX to develop Learning in a Public Medium into a series of new dialogues with Marshall's works at MAC, Belfast and Baltic 39, Newcastle.  

Ryan Conrad is a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Humanities PhD offered through the Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Society and Culture as well as a faculty member in the Interdisciplinary Sexuality Studies program at Concordia University. Conrad is also the co-founder of Against Equality, a digital archive and publishing collective based in the United States and Canada. He is the editor of the collective’s anthology series that are compiled together in Against Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion (2014).

He has also contributed chapters to several anthologies including The Gay Agenda (2014), Queering Anarchism (2013) and After Homosexual (co-authored with Yasmin Nair and Karma Chávez, 2013). His written work has appeared in scholarly and activist publications including American Quarterly, e-flux, Aparté, QED: A Journal of LGBTQ Worldmaking, Socialism & Democracy, We Who Feel Differently, UltraViolet, In These Times and Fifth Estate. His work as a visual and performing artist has exhibited internationally in Europe, Asia and North America.