Launch: Saturday 4th July 1-3pm

Gallery: Upper and Lower Galleries

Curator: Sophia Yadong Hao

Join us on Saturday July 4th for the launch of a dazzling exhibition reverberating with the attitude, poise and pose of feminist and queer ‘acting up’ and speaking truth to power. We are pleased that curator Sophia Yadong Hao, Director of the Cooper Gallery, University of Dundee, will be here with us!

The exhibition is inspired by the essential words of African American writer, feminist and civil rights activist Audre Lorde in her seminal essay ‘The Master’s Tools will Never Dismantle the Master’s House’.

OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE X BELFAST brings together artists, activists, collectives, writers, & thinkers including: Sam Ainsley, Anne Bean, Sutapa Biswas, Sheba Chhachhi, Phyllis Christopher, Akwugo Emejulu, Margaret Harrison, Barbara Howey, Carol Massey Lingard and Jenny Stevens, Tari Ito, Amelia Jones, Mary Kelly, Suzanne Lacy, Audre Lorde, Annabel Nicolson, Griselda Pollock, Monica Ross, Georgina Starr, Jo Spence, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Maud Sulter, Ronald Wright, Ajamu X, alongside collective actions and groups including Cyber feminist collective Old Boys Network, Fenix, Feministo: Women’s Postal Art Event, Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, Haven for Artists, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, The Hackney Flashers, OutRage!, and Womanifesto. It also features archive material from feminist and queer movements held in the Linen Hall Library in Belfast.

The Ignorant Art School Sit-in #4: Outside the Circle exhibition and events at Cooper Gallery was funded by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland and the University of Dundee. Research on Audre Lorde’s activities in Europe was supported by the Goethe-Institut Glasgow.

Accessibility 

The exhibition is across both the Lower Gallery and Upper Gallery. The Lower Gallery is accessed via the ground floor, which is step-free. The Upper Gallery is accessed via lift from the ground floor or via the main staircase.

Large print versions of exhibition texts are available.

Access videos of the gallery are available on our website here, with BSL and ISL signed versions.

Please let us know if you have any questions or additional requirements, we are working hard to make the gallery as accessible as possible for everyone.

Golden Thread Gallery is proud to hold an Arts & Disability Access Award 2025 Venue Accreditation. 

Golden Thread Gallery is supported by: