miércoles, 5 de agosto de 2009

De La Grace Volcano


Esta mañana me he queddao sorprendido al recibir este correo... a quien le pueda interesar, a tod@s l@s ue debíamos actuar...



From: Del LaGrace Volcano <dellagracevolcano@mac.com>

URGENT: Lecturer being fired for showing my work to students!

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

I am asking for a favour. A young man who used to attend my lectures as
a photography student is being threatened with redundancy because he
recommended my work to a student doing a project on gender and
sexuality. Please send letters of support for Simon Burgess to Dr
Eugenie Shinkle as soon as possible! Time IS of the essence here as it
seems the institutional powers that be at East Surrey College have
scheduled the hearing for a time when it will be hard for Simon to rally
support.
If you value the work I and others like me have done over the past 25
years please stand up and say so! Simon needs your "expert" opinions if
he is to keep his job! If you would be so kind as to Bcc: me that would
be great!
Thank you so much!
Del LaGrace Volcano




Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 21:37:40 +0100
To: Shirley O'Loughlin <oloughs@westminster.ac.uk>
Subject: support for Simon Burgess

Simon Burgess, a lecturer at East Surrey College, is facing serious
disciplinary action (and possible redundancy) for introducing students
to the work of photographic artist Del LaGrace Volcano.

Management are claiming it is pornography, salacious, grotesque,
worthless and not relevant to, or appropriate for 2nd year level 3
photography students preparing for higher study.

Apart from being censorious, backward, and homophobic, management's
stance displays a remarkable ignorance of contemporary debates and
image-making strategies. This is a serious matter that has implications
for all academics, teachers, and students, and we would be very grateful
for an email expressing your support for Simon, and offering your expert
opinion on the relevance of Del's work to contemporary debates and
practices, his status as an international transgender artist, etc.

All emails should be sent to Eugenie Shinkle (shinkle@wmin.ac.uk), and
she will forward them on to the appropriate person (we're not sure just
yet whether they should be sent to Simon, to his UCU rep, or directly to
management). We're under a bit of time pressure as his hearing has been
scheduled for August 17th - which I've only just found out, so apologies
if this reaches you at an awkward time.

Dr. Eugenie Shinkle
Senior Lecturer in Photographic Theory and Criticism
School of Media, Arts and Design
University of Westminster
Watford Road, Northwick Park
Harrow, Middlesex
HA1 3TP


__________________________________
Jessica Cadwallader
Administrator
Somatechnics Research Centre
Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy
Macquarie University
NSW 2109 Australia