Feminist flash occupation of F-ish Gallery

On the evening of Friday 9 March a group of women occupied the empty F-ish Gallery in Robertson Street, Hastings. The occupation was to mark International Women’s Day and highlight how recessionary times hit women even harder than men, writes Erica Smith.

Friday night was spent making a giant banner, reminiscent of the work of the inaugural Jerwood Gallery exhibitor Rose Wylie. The banner included statistics about women and wealth, on both local and international scales.

Local resident and occupier Marnie Johnson said, “Nationally, women make up 65% of the public sector workforce, and the Hastings area is particularly dependent on public sector jobs which makes the impact of the recession on women even greater.”

The F-ish Gallery, on the ground floor of the Creative Media Centre, was chosen as the ideal venue for the occupation because it has been empty since the beginning of the year. Protester and former Chair of Castle Ward community forum Erica Smith said: “It is a crime to leave this publicly funded town centre space empty. The Creative Media Centre was built with government money in order to support the growth of the local creative industries. Current tenants of the building include Amber Rudd MP, and a company called ‘LowTax Industries’ whose sole purpose is to advise companies on how best to avoid paying tax in the UK. If these are appropriate tenants for the building, it seems equally appropriate to have a creative occupation here!”.

On Saturday, the F-ish Gallery was opened up to the public and people were invited to contribute their comments about how the recession has hit them, what they thought would be good uses for the building and why they thought women are amazing. 30-40 visitors of both sexes came through the doors, and many more people stopped to read the statistics on the purple and green banners in the window.

Comments included suggested new uses for F-ish as a child-friendly café space, a music venue, a free university and to continue as an art space run and used by the community. The suggestions have been forwarded to Hastings Borough Council and the Creative Media Centre – one of the occupiers said: “We are happy to have acted as the only consultants not to charge an arm and a leg for our services!”

Passer-by Carl Jackson was surprised and delighted by the new-look F-ish Gallery. He said “I think the occupation has brought balance back to the building.”

True to the form of the international Occupy! movement, the protesters held a General assembly to discuss the purpose of their actions and their next steps. It was decided not to prolong the occupation of the building, but to leave with their points being made clearly and succinctly. It was agreed that a positive future for F-ish would be to stay open as a subsidised community gallery space and venue.

Protester and local artist Emily Johns said: “There is a traditional saying: ‘A fish rots from the head down,’ which means that if a nation is in a poor state, it is because of those at the top. Our occupation of F-ish Gallery was to start creating positive change from the bottom up.”

Several passers-by had asked if they could make a donation, and these donations were left in the gallery space to cover the cost of the electricity used.

The banner included the following statistics:

“Women are half the world’s population
They work 2/3 of the world’s working hours
They receive 10% of the world’s income
And own less than 1% of the world’s property.”

The current British unemployment rate is 7.7% – or 1 in 13 people.
In Hastings, the rate is more than 1 in 10,
And over 1/3 of households live in poverty.
(Source: East Sussex in Figures.)

Locally, the average wage for men is £420 per week, but only
£292 per week for women – local women earn less than 70% of local male earnings.
(Source: East Sussex in Figures)

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