15 October @ 14:00 – 20:30
Date: Sunday 15 November
Workshops: from 2:30pm
Public screenings: from 7:00pm
Location: SET Social, 55a Nigel Road, Peckham, SE15 4NP
Admission: Free
Films:
Sari Red (1988), dir. Pratibha Parmar
Castles of Sand (1987), dir. Wendy Williamson
Back Inside Herself (1984), dir. S. Pearl Sharp
Subject To Change: Refusal and Selfhood in Feminist Film comes to SET Social, Peckham, on Sunday 15 November 2026. Presented by Central Saint Martins’ MA Culture, Criticism and Curation in collaboration with feminist film organisation, Cinenova.
Bringing together three films from the Cinenova collection alongside participatory workshops through the afternoon, Subject To Change explores how feminist moving image can create space for individuals to explore identities that resist the expectations placed upon them.
The programme features a special screening of Pratibha Parmar’s Sari Red (1988), Wendy Williamson’s Castles of Sand (1987) and S. Pearl Sharp’s Back Inside Herself (1984). Chosen for their poetic underscores and continuing political relevance, the films invite an alternative way of considering how identity is constructed, performed and reclaimed.
At the centre of the event is a question drawn from critical and theoretical enquiry: who gets to tell their own story? Through the lens of film, the programme looks to creative responses to what happens when people refuse the roles assigned to them. Research into feminist representations of migration has shown how migrant women can be reduced to symbolic figures of vulnerability, their individual voices and cultural differences obscured in the process. Made in the 1980s, the films carry poignant messages of strength and resilience that endure today.
The free event runs through the afternoon, welcoming audiences to take part in up to three optional workshops, each pairing a screening with a creative activity and discussion. The day leads into an evening event with a main screening of all three short films, followed by a social celebrating the important work of the Cinenova collection alongside the SET community.
Programme
Each film will act as a starting point for a dedicated workshop, creating space for participants to explore the themes raised by the work.
2-3.30pm — Sari Red workshop on Clothing and Visual Identity
Responding to Sari Red, participants will use collage and communal mapping to explore clothing, cultural symbols, memory and the different identities we carry with us. Beginning with the question of what we wear on our bodies and what others might read from it, the workshop will consider how identity is shaped both by ourselves and by environments around us, questioning simplified expectations of what a woman, a migrant or a community should look like.
3.45-5pm — Castles of Sand workshop on Migration and Intergenerational Memory
Inspired by the dialogue in Castles of Sand, participants will take part in a letter-writing workshop.. Guests will be invited to write towards someone from their past, present selves, or to someone who might come after. The letters offer a way of reflecting on inherited stories and cultural connections; writing across imagined distances of borders and generations, the workshop creates space to consider what we inherit, what we carry with us and what we might choose to pass on.
5.15-6pm — Back Inside Herself workshop on Poetry and Self-affirmation
Taking Back Inside Herself and its celebration of a Black woman defining herself for herself as a starting point, participants will engage closely with the film’s language, sounds and images through guided creative-writing exercises. Together we’ll ask what it might mean to turn back towards oneself, and how language can make space for that return. You might leave with a poem or a page of fragments; the aim is not to produce a finished piece, but to listen, experiment with language and consider what returning to oneself might look, feel or sound like.
7pm — Doors open for the evening screening
Ticketing
Entry is free, but we ask guests to register via Eventbrite so we can manage numbers. Separate tickets are available for each workshop and for the evening screening, so please book a place for every part of the day you’d like to attend.
About Cinenova
Presented by Central Saint Martins’ MA Culture, Criticism and Curation in collaboration with Cinenova, a volunteer-led organisation dedicated to preserving and distributing feminist film and video. Cinenova currently distributes over 300 titles that include artists’ moving image, experimental film, narrative feature films, documentary and educational videos made from the 1910s to the early 2000s.