NOTE

Still from HD video, (Hyde Hill Productions, Director Oliver Guy Watkins, 2018). This documentary film follows Firrell's making of a series of six billboards commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which partially decriminalised gay sex in England and Wales. In these artworks, Firrell re-states demands made by gay and women's rights activists in the 1960s which still warrant attention in the artist's view. Videographer possibly John Schofield, date possibly 4 September 2017, location uncertain. 2017 from the series is based on radical lesbian feminist theory of the 1960s and 70s in which women were encouraged to embrace lesbianism as a primarily political rather than a personal act. Only by embracing lesbianism, radical feminists theorised, could a women free herself from patriarchal control. At the same time, political lesbianism would undermine the societal structures that automatically place men at the top of the social hierarchy simply by virtue of their gender.