Open Clasp Theatre Company screening of Mycelial at UCC

30 Oct 2024

Mycelial an Open Clasp Theatre Company Film written by Catrina McHugh and directed by Laura Lindlow, co-created with sex worker activists in Ireland, the UK and New Zealand was screened in The Shtepps on Thursday 24^th October. 

ISS21 Gender, Sexualities and Families research cluster, EDI Safe & Sound and UCC Futures-Collective Social Futures were delighted to welcome Catrina McHugh MBE writer and creative director of Open Clasp feminist theatre company who create spaces for women, inclusive of trans women, gender queer and non-binary to come together, be creative and as experts in their lived experience to highlight the key  issues affecting them and what needs to change. Working through storytelling and interactive theatre Open Clasp create powerful theatre and encourage audiences to walk in the shoes of the women and marginalised communities they work with and facilitate debate. 

Mycelial an Open Clasp Theatre Company Film written by Catrina McHugh and directed by Laura Lindlow, co-created with sex worker activists in Ireland, the UK and New Zealand was screened in The Shtepps on Thursday 24^th October with a follow on panel discussion that included Catrina McHugh, Doris Murphy (UCC) and a representative from Red Umbrella Project and The Street Workers Collective Dublin, chaired by Maggie O'Neill.  

Sex Workers voices are often silenced or mediated by others in debates about them. Mycelial challenges exclusionary discourses and practices and facilitates space for sex workers to tell their stories on their own terms and in their own words. These shared experiences  of sex workers across the globe, the lived experiences of criminalisation and victimisation, as well as the strengths resilience and resistances to oppression and the everyday lived lives as mothers, daughters, sisters create the scaffolding for Catrina's writing. Mycelial makes a powerful case that inequalities and injustice must be rectified, not by criminalising sex workers, but by addressing the structural, relational, and social factors involved.

Mycelial speaks to the experiences of those involved and illuminates the relationship between lived experiences, history and society that draw attention to the 'myths, metaphors and misogyny' and help us to understand lives lived in 'discriminatory and exploitative class and gender relations' ( Pat Carlen, Criminal Women, 1985, Grace et al 2022). The play shows that although much has changed in terms of legal responses- decriminalisation in New Zealand, Nordic model in Ireland, neo abolition in the UK, stigma, oppression, and social control remain central to sex workers lives and experiences and especially in relation to the justice system. Moreover, that  research, policy, practice, and activism  that is co-created with sex workers is very much needed.

"I enjoyed it very much. Such an incredible work, highlighting the perils and tensions of sex work and activism, but also the undeniable power of storytelling. This is how non-extractivist transformative work looks like!" Dr Gema Kloppe-Santamaria.

Catrina McHugh said;"It was such an honour to be back in Cork and I’m grateful to Maggie, her team, the care, and respect shown to Open Clasp. I am extremely proud of Mycelial.

"This screening was particularly special because I got to sit next to one of our co-creators. We watched side by side as the stories unfold, for me memories flood in – the pandemic, zooms, conversations, creativity, talent, skill and storytelling shared, the ordinary and extraordinary, all of which led to making this production – Mycelial has been building power in rooms, placing sex workers, their voices and call to action front and centre stage.

"We now head to London, over to Aotearoa/New Zealand and return to the Northeast in December. Mycelial will also be online from the 25^th of November to the 17^th of December 2024."

ISS21 is a dynamic interdisciplinary institute for scholars, PhD students and researchers and seeks to build sustainable research that will shape Ireland in the 21st century across twelve research clusters. ISS21 is the lead partner in UCC Futures: Collective Social Futures  that supports the social sciences across UCC to critically understand, re-imagine and enact our collective social futures in collective, just, and sustainable ways.