Resident Artist Sadie Lee introduces queer peoples historian Bird la Bird in the Ondaatje Wing Theatre, Floor -2, before heading into the Gallery for a performative Gallery talk. In June 1914 suffragette Margaret Gibb, using the pseudonym Anne Hunt, smuggled an axe into the National Portrait Gallery and attacked a portrait of Thomas Carlyle, a towering intellectual of the Victorian age who amongst other things wanted to bring back slavery. Margaret Gibb claimed her choice of portrait was a mere co-incidence. But given that Carlyle believed in the destiny of great men (there were no great women in his book), Bird begs the question: Was this supposedly random act one of feminist fate? Bird will pick up where Margaret left off and explore the dangerous legacy of Thomas Carlyle including his part in the history of racism, his wilful act of writing women out of history and his desire to return to feudalism. There's a queer perspective to every story including this one. Bird will get her beak stuck into suffragette spinsters, the infamous domestic arrangements in the Carlyle household and touch on the impact Carlyle had on early 20th Century queers. Bird la Bird is a performance artist who straddles comedy and history lectures. For the past 6 years Bird has created hugely popular queer people's history tours of the National Portrait Gallery, V&A, Tate Britain and the City of London Corporation. Bird's tours explore the intersecting histories of homophobia, colonialism, sexism and class exploitation. She uncovers the remarkable stories of queer working class people and queer people of colour who lived and loved despite brutal hardships and repression. birdlabird.co.uk

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