Table of Ugly Words Star of Feminist Militia Exhibit

“I am sitting at a long antique wooden school table, burning capital letters onto the surface: ‘B****,’” the Independent’s Zoe Pilger describes from exhibition rooms HQ, London. “Other words swarm all over it: ‘Vagina Dentata’, ‘Fishy Vagina’, ‘Bicycle’, ‘Butch Bull Dyke’, and ‘Fat Poisonous B****.’ The word ‘b****’ appears many times, in many permutations; so too does ‘c***’ and ‘slut.’”

“Miss Pokeno and The Sisters of Perpetual Resistance invite women to sit at the table, remember the worst names they have ever been called because of their sex, and burn them onto the surface with the aid of a pyropen, an electric device with a hot red nib that creates a satisfyingly scorched smell as you write, and requires patience.

“The table is called Too Ugly For Words (work in progress) and it is the star of this exhibition of feminist militia art.

“‘Miss Pokeno and The Sisters of Perpetual Resistance’ is in fact a pseudonym for New Zealand-born London-based pop-star turned artist Alannah Currie, 56, formerly of 1980s New Wave band The Thompson Twins. The table was inspired by 1970s feminist consciousness-raising meetings, whereby women would sit around and smoke fags and talk about their experiences. The meetings elicited ‘a tidal wave of words,’ as Currie puts it, and the simple fact of expressing them proved revolutionary.”