About the Report
Wild Wild Women, is a report about the ten annual arts projects led by magic Me with Mulberry School for Girls at The Women’s Library from 2004-2013. Magic Me Associate Artist, Sue Mayo, led the series of ten projects and collaborated with many Magic Me artists from other disciplines. The projects always drew from the Libraries rich collection, and always worked towards a final display of the work or performance. The report is in three parts:

Introduction by Susan Langford, Director, Magic Me
This section describes briefly the range of work and the practice of Magic Me in 2003, when the collaboration with The Women’s Library was developed. It then outlines changes and developments over the decade of annual projects and what it took to make each project happen successfully.

The Projects by Sue Mayo, Associate Artist, Magic Me
This is an account by Sue Mayo, lead artist for the series of Magic Me projects at The Women’s Library. Sue describes the background and aims of the series and then details each of the ten projects: the theme, materials from the Library collections used by the group, the artforms and artists, the participants and the outcomes. She discusses some of the challenges and changes that the artists and the participants worked with during the lifetime of the projects. The projects, project artists and participants are also listed overleaf.

Research report by Dr Caoimhe McAvinchey, Queen Mary, University of London
Caoimhe outlines the rationale for the research, the changing local and global contexts for the projects and the partners involved. Informed by observation and analyses of live work, archive materials and interviews with artists, participants and key partner staff, the report identifies characteristics of successful intergenerational arts practice that may be applied in different cultural collections contexts. The report addresses three specific questions that run across the decade of partnerships and practice:
• What are the characteristics of the artists’ approach in The Women’s Library projects?
• What are the possibilities offered through intergenerational arts practice in a library or heritage context?
• What is particular about working with women-only intergenerational groups?

I was deeply moved both professionally and personally by the Wild Wild Women conference. Many of the ideas discussed forced me to question my role professionally as a learning facilitator, individually as a women and collectively within the community where I live. . I have read your report from front to back and it has definitely help inform my current plans and proposals for future projects.

Stephanie Christodoulou, Royal Albert Hall

Report Launch: 7 November 2013
The Report was launched to great success at Queen Mary, University of London to a full house. The conference saw a panel of six women come together to share their findings and experiences of the women only arts projects: Vanessa Ogden (Head Teacher, Mulberry School), Susan Langford (Director, Magic Me), Sue Mayo (Associate Artist Magic Me), Dr Caoimhe McAvinchey (Queen Mary, University of London), Winnie Roach (Adult participant), Samilah Naira (Young participant).

Following an in-depth analysis of the Report’s findings by Dr Caoimhe McAvinchey and the screening of Wild Wild Women: The Documentary, the attendees then broke up into smaller discussion groups which allowed them to meet more of the participants and artists involved. The guests also got the chance to take part in a short workshops that showed how groups how drawn from the Libraries collections in the past to inform the arts projects.