Ithell Colquhoun and The Vital Energies of Land and Body Tickets - - OutSavvy

CLASS DESCRIPTION Like most occultists of the twentieth century, occultist and surrealist Ithell Colquhoun was deeply interested in the intersections of spirituality and science, believing that the scientific advancements relating to the invisible world (X rays, radio waves, atomic theory) would prove the existence of spiritual planes and dimensions. From 1939-1942, as World War Two was raging, Colquhoun’s own magical and artistic practice was focused on an animistic notion of vitality, theorizing about the ways in which bodies and the earth held, and transferred energy. Through her wildly colorful landscape studies and a bold series of works devoted to sacred sexuality, Colquhoun explored how humans could connect to the divine through learning to direct the energy currents in their own bodies and through engaging with ancient sacred sites. Perhaps she believed that society could overcome its divisions through an integration with the sacred, fueled by energy from the portals of sacred landscapes and individuals’ elevated connections with one another as they embraced the potential to access dimensions more peaceful and enlightened than the unstable world around them. This richly illustrated talk unpacks the occultural context and the embrace of empiricism that informed Colquhoun’s ideas about vital energies, followed by the ways in which Colquhoun explored union with the divine through sex magic and encounters with sacred sites. This explicit and revealing body of work theorizes the operationalization of women’s pleasure, the transcendence of gender and the activation of prehistoric megalithic monuments, all powered by the ability to harness and direct the electromagnetic currents that were the keys to ancient spiritual technologies, and that Colquhoun believed had the potential to heal humanity. ABOUT OUR LECTURER Amy Hale is an Atlanta based writer and critic with a PhD in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA. Her research interests include contemporary magical practice and history, art, culture, women and Cornwall. She has written widely on artist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun, and has been an academic advisor to the 2025 Colquhoun retrospective at Tate St. Ives and Tate Britain. She wrote the first scholarly biography of Colquhoun, Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully (Strange Attractor, 2020) followed by the collection Sex Magic: Diagrams of Love, (Tate Publishing, 2024), and A Walking Flame: Selected Magical Essays of Ithell Colquhoun (Strange Attractor 2025). She is also the editor of the groundbreaking collection Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses (Palgrave 2022). She has written extensively on magic and contemporary art for Tate, Burlington Contemporary, Art UK, The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Correspondences Journal and other institutions. She is an Honorary Research Fellow with Falmouth University in Cornwall, a trustee of the UK Charity Rediscovering Art by Women (RAW) and a member of the British Art Network. Beyond the Supernatural: Magic in Contemporary Art is due to be published with Tate Publishing in 2026. INSTAGRAM: @amyhale93SUBSTACK: @chasingthesupersensualWEBSITE: www.amyhale.me DONATE TO FLP Love what you’re seeing? Help The Feminist Lecture Program to keep our Pay What You Can ticket model, and to continue scheduling an incredible line-up of lectures by donating a little extra. You can send us a ‘tip’ via our PayPal link here: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/my/profile SUMMER TERM 2025 Monday 5th May Clelia McElroy (she/her)Killjoy: Anti-Heroines of Thriller and Horror Cinema Monday 12th May Lucy Wright (she/her)A Feminist Reclamation of Folk Monday 19th MayDr Helen Gørrill (she/her)Women Can't Paint: Gender, the Glass Ceiling and Values in Contemporary Art Monday 26th May Eleanor Medhurst (she/her)A History of Queer Women's Hairstyles Monday 2nd June Ama Josephine Budge Johnstone (she/her)Eluding Capture: Shooting and Showing the Black Body from the Heart of Empire Monday 9th June Minna Salami (she/her)From Andro-Africanism to Europatriarchy: Decoding Masculine Power Monday 16th June Dr. Kimberly Baltzer-Jaray (she/they)Alien: A Perfect Queer Organism Film Monday 23rd June Daisy McManaman (she/her)A Girl Resembles a Bunny: A Feminist Re-Analysis of Representations of Women in Playboy Monday 30th June Dr. Giulia Palladini (she/her)Indomitable and Undomesticated: A Feminist Reclamation of the Domestic Monday 7th July Amy Hale (she/her)Ithell Colquhoun and The Vital Energies of Land and Body Monday 14th July Marie-Anne Mancio (she/her)Whoreticulture: The Sexworker in Western Art RECORDING A recording of the lecture will be sent out by The Feminist Lecture Program after the event finishes, within 2 hours of the end of the class. This email will also contain any resources/reading list the lecturer shares. Please add [email protected] to your email contacts to ensure you receive the recording as expected. Please note that the recording will expire 7 days after sending. PAY WHAT YOU CAN Everyone is welcome to join this Pay-What-You-Can class. We suggest a donation of £20, however, we understand that may not be possible for everybody. Please be honest and pay what you can afford so that we can continue to offer our sessions on a donation basis. MORE FLP… Can’t get enough? The Feminist Lecture Program has our very own digital archive, where you can find some of the best past lectures from our back catalogue to rent and watch ON DEMAND. Check out our ever growing collection here: https://thefeministlectureprogram.vhx.tv/ Follow us on Instagram @thefeministlectureprogram And check out our sustainable merch from FLP Studio at https://feministlectureprogram.com/shop & @flp__studio And that's it. We're really looking forward to you joining us x

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