Ideas from Beccy McCray
Explore below as Beccy McCray’s Deep Dive takes us from Sussex to activism, where the importance of art and pleasure are powerhouse moves at every turn. Beccy's conversation links us to Bridgerton in that our ability to continually remake myths from the world we live in to better understand the world we want to create are key to humanity's betterment. And at the center of this? Creativity!
The Long man of Wilmington
The Long Man of Wilmington is a 235-foot-tall human figure outlined in chalk and concrete on a hillside in England’s South Downs, whose mysterious origins and centuries of reinterpretation have made him a powerful symbol of landscape, myth, and contemporary Sussex identity.
The Long Man has become part of contemporary Sussex identity as a symbol that different communities continually reinterpret, whether through spirituality, art, folk traditions like the Long Man Morris Men dancing at his feet on May Day, or through popular culture references (it’s featured in The Sandman, for example). The Long Man shows how people can turn a natural landscape into a cultural landmark and then continually reshape that landmark themselves. Image: The Modern Antiquarian
In 2017, “Don’t Frack with Sussex,” a local environmental campaign opposing fracking and promoting cleaner, more sustainable energy, unfurled a giant “FRACK OFF” banner across the Long Man of Wilmington—turning the iconic landscape figure into a contemporary symbol of Sussex’s environmental identity. Image: BBC
Return to The Handmaid's Tale
Towner Eastbourne
The Towner Eastbourne is a contemporary art museum in Sussex that also delivers diverse, artist-led educational programming designed to make creative industries accessible to local schools, youth groups, and underrepresented communities. https://townereastbourne.org.uk/about/towner-eastbourne Image: Towner Eastbourne
Future Makers was an overarching artist-led educational project led by Beccy McCray at Towner Eastbourne in 2022 designed to introduce Year 9 students to creative career paths through immersive, nature-inspired workshops. Image: Beccy McCray's IG reel https://www.instagram.com/reels/DWXJuQ_CHa4/
The Acid Folk Myth Lab was a specific set of workshops within the Future Makers program where students used mixed media like charcoal and neon yarn to reimagine the local landscape and the folklore of the Long Man of Wilmington in order to reconsider their own lives. Image: Towner Eastbourne's IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/DRVFgk8DVob/?img_index=1
Pleasure Activism
Pleasure activism is the practice of recognizing joy, pleasure, connection, and fulfillment as sources of power and as essential to creating social change. Activism isn't restricted to struggle, sacrifice, anger, or resistance. Pleasure can also be substantial in building community, agency, and collective power.
adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (2019) was groundbreaking in disseminating the idea that joy, connection, creativity, and other forms of pleasure can be sources of power and tools for building social justice and collective liberation.
During the 2020 U.S. election, Joy to the Polls formed in Philadelphia and brought DJs, musicians, dancers, and performers to hundreds of polling places across the States, particularly where people faced long waits. The goal was explicitly to use joy and community to encourage civic participation. Joy was the organizing tool, not decoration around activism. Image: popcollab.org
Remote Access Party was an online “crip nightlife” project curated and designed by the Critical Design Lab, “a multi-disciplinary and multi-institution arts and design collaborative rooted in disability culture.” The Party—“and act of love”—emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic and used music, social connection, and collectively to create accessibility and to turn pleasure and access into practices of disability justice. The Lab: https://www.criticaldesignlab.com/ Party Page: https://www.criticaldesignlab.com/project/remote-access-party