Babe Station Live #4 - Sorry about the mess edition

Babe Station Live #4 is at the Birmingham School of Art Gallery on Tuesday 20 October, running from 5pm to 7pm with performances starting promptly at 5.30pm. It's the latest in a roaming series of literary and arts events put on by writers and artists who identify as mothers or have experienced infertility or child loss. This particular edition sits inside Sorry about the mess #2, the second Babe Station exhibition at the School of Art, which brings together thirteen artists to treat mess not just as an aesthetic but as a condition, an obstacle, a form of critique and a mode of play.

The title comes from the apology so many mothers utter when welcoming visitors into their homes—a phrase the organisers call insincere, and a mockery of social expectations and of art schools' inhospitable attitudes towards artists with caring responsibilities. The work on display spans sculpture, installation, video, painting and photography, and takes a darker turn, unravelling grief, illness, pain and alienation with the body at the centre.

On the night, seven performers take the floor: Abimbola Alaka, Ellen Angus, Janine Goldsworthy, Meghan Goodeve, Kate Leah Hewett, Niamh Riordan and Charmaine Rose. Babe Station is an artist-led organisation run by founder Millie Walton with Rebecca Livesey-Wright and Magdalena Kallenberger, and its wider programme includes an Artist Development Programme for artist parents and caregivers.

Tickets are £10, and free for BCU staff and students. The gallery is on Margaret Street, B3 3BX, and the performances start at 5.30pm.