Slamming Doors: Falling out and Fighting Back

Join organiser Dean Spade and writer Hannah Proctor in conversation with artist Winnie Herbstein as they discuss collective strategies for working together through conflicts past and present, personal and organisational.

This event marks the launch of two new publications: Slamming Doors: Falling out and fighting back in a housing crisis which features all three contributors; and Dean Spade’s Love in a F*cked up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together.

Slamming Doors brings together writers, academics and community organisers against the backdrop of an ongoing housing crisis. Acting as a ‘user’s manual’, the book mobilises text and images, archives and conversations to unpack themes around DIY learning, grassroots organising, and how to record, disseminate and learn from these struggles. In addition to this event’s speakers, the book includes contributions from Lola Olufemi, Kirsten Lloyd and Cathy McCormack. Slamming Doors is published by Framer Framed and University of Edinburgh.

Dean Spade’s Love in a F*cked up World is a call to action and a practical manifesto for how to combat cultural scripts and take our relationships into our own hands, preparing us for the work of changing the world. It is published by Algonquin Books.

The people:

Winnie Herbstein is an artist and filmmaker exploring historical and contemporary forms of community-led organising. In particular, she is interested in how these narratives intersect with the built environment and our access to space within it. She trained in construction and is a founding member of Slaghammers, an educational metalwork collective based in Glasgow.

Hannah Proctor holds a Wellcome University Award at the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. She is a member of the Radical Philosophy editorial collective, is a contributing editor at Parapraxis and published Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat with Verso in 2024. She is currently interested in revenge.

Dean Spade has been working to build queer and trans liberation and end policing, border enforcement, and war for the past 25 years. He is the author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of the Law, and Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next), and the director of Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back!, which can be watched for free online with English captions or subtitles in several languages. His newest book is Love in F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together. You can listen to his new podcast here.

This event was kindly brought to Listen Gallery by Mason Leaver-Yap - thank for trusting this space.

Access:

A small access fund is available to support local transport to and from this event. The funds are distributed on a first come first served basis. To access funds for travel please send an email to Listengallery@proton.me

Listen Gallery is step free with an accessible toilet in the reception area. There is enough space for wheelchairs and there is parking for scooters.

Image caption: Cartoons by Brick, early 1970s. Collection: Cathy McCormack archive, Glasgow Women’s Library, brickbats.co.uk. (a black pen cartoon drawing of an official addressing what looks to be like a family, who are crying. With the text 'of course it's damp with you lot crying all the time')