Building on recent research into the feminist potential of women’s writings, this project seeks to activate archival material on site at Glasgow Women’s Library GWL) through performance. GWL is the only Accredited Museum in the UK dedicated to women’s lives, histories and achievements and is a welcoming and inclusive space.* Using artefacts and sources from the library collection and archive as stimuli for performance making, autobiographical stories and experiences will be translated to a performance to platform women’s stories and explore life writing as feminist praxis.

Using some of the materials from GWL that have fed into the research and development of the project, Irritating the Materials asks what happens to the latent meaning of the archive when it rubs up against the present.

* GWL is sensitive and inclusive of Trans and Intersex women, as well as non-binary and gender fluid people who are comfortable in a space that centres the experiences of women.