LiLI's UNRULY SPRING

Images ©Katrien Jacobs, ©Vlasta Delimar, ©LiLI

For six years, we immersed ourselves in the stories of women in mid‑ and later life about ageing, relationships and sexuality. We spoke with women and gender‑nonconforming people, listened in online menopause groups, attended intimacy events, spent time in residential care homes, and analysed books, films and art. In this spring laboratory, we will not only share insights, but also explore ways to dismantle dominant, marginalising narratives together. How might we create new imaginaries that make space for desire, intimacy and resistance in later life? We invite speakers and audience members to think, dream and struggle alongside us.

To celebrate the closure of the project, we are organizing a three-day lab. It will include presentations of our research, our forthcoming book Unruly Aesthetics (Bristol University Press Policy, 2026), a panel discussion with Lynn Segal, a reading group, a sensuality & photo workshop with Hilde Braet and Tamara Foubert, a shamanic trance journey with Eva de Groote and performances by Dr Jacobs Drag Professor and Vlasta Delimar.

PROGRAMME OVERVIEW

Wednesday 15 April 2026

Book launch Women’s ageing and sexuality: unruly aesthetics and panel discussion, concluding with a scientific-artistic performance. This day will be exclusively in English.

13:30-14:00: Introduction of the Later-in-Life Intimacies project by Katrien De Graeve, PI

14:00-16:00: Older womxn: intimate possibilities and unruly imageries

This session explores the sensible order that defines women’s intimate possibilities, the unruly ways in which older women disrupt it, and the openings this creates for new imaginaries.

14:00-14:40: Presentation upcoming book by Katrien De Graeve & Giulia Nazzaro

How do older women use art and media to resist ageist and sexist norms that regulate their intimacy and sexuality? Women’s ageing and sexuality: unruly aesthetics (2026, Bristol University Press - Policy Press) brings the subversive aesthetic strategies of older women to the forefront, using the concept of ‘unruliness’, understood as a failure or unwillingness to conform. Drawing on critical age studies, feminist theory and allied critical approaches, the book develops a new conceptual model that positions ageing women’s aesthetic interventions as a source of insight and social change. Combining theory with close readings of art and media, offers a framework for rethinking ageing, sexuality and empowerment.

14:40-16:10: Paul Reynolds in conversation with Lynne Segal

16:30-17:00: My splendid AI Progeny - performance by Dr. Jacobs, Drag Professor

In this performance-lecture, “Dr. Jacobs” tells a tale of creating an AI descendant. Dr. Jacobs, Professor in Gender and Sexuality Studies, is approaching retirement and has been invited to join Afterglow, a secret corporate program through which a select group of ageing academics are invited to use AI models and turn themselves into “AI professors.” These are full-body humanoids who have extracted the entire intellectual make-up of the human professor, but who are required by contract to be 20 years younger. Dr. Jacobs explains the pains and pleasures of working for Afterglow and the birth of splendidly queer offspring

Thursday 16 April 2026

13:30-15:30 (in English): Syllabus reading group with TBA

‘Syllabus’ is an ongoing artwork by the Irish artist Jesse Jones: a monumental, 12‑metre‑high, semi‑transparent curtain depicting the giant left arm of the well‑known feminist and activist scholar Silvia Federici. The work also includes a contract stating that, for the duration of the loan, the space enclosed by the curtain must host an activist reading group once a month.

15:30-16:30 (in Dutch, English translation): presentation by Nika Looman’s on older queer women and non-binary people’s narratives of their queer life course, queer sex in later life (and/or no longer having sex), and about the continuously evolving role of intimacy.

19:30-22:00: Hedendaags sjamanisme voor tegendraadse wijze vrouwen. Sjamanistische trancereis door Eva De Groote, met een inleiding door Carla Besora Barti. - Exclusively Dutch / Volledig Nederlands

Een ritueel met Eva De Groote, waarin we de wijsheid van oudere vrouwen eren, oproepen en herwinnen, voorbij alle stereotypen. In LiLI krijgt de wijze vrouw, de crone, de vrijheid om ontembaar, luid of ongemakkelijk te zijn. In een intieme cirkel zal Eva ons begeleiden op een bijzondere sjamanistische reis voor deze gelegenheid. Een collectieve innerlijke reis die de deuren opent naar inzicht en belichaamde wijsheid.

===========================> Reserve your spot here!

Friday/Vrijdag 17 April

14:00-17:00: (in Dutch): Sensualiteit en fotografie workshop met Tamara Foubert & Hilde Braet

In deze workshop voor 50+ vrouwxn staat sensualiteit centraal. Via sensatiespel en zelfportrettering worden deelnemers op een laagdrempelige manier uitgenodigd te experimenteren met voelen en verbeelden.

19:30: ‘Natuurlijk ben ik boos!’: woede en verzet bij vrouwen van middelbare leeftijd – Katrien De Graeve - Dutch / Nederlands

Het feminisme heeft de boosheid van vrouwen collectief herkenbaar gemaakt, maar de woede van ouder wordende vrouwen is nauwelijks hoorbaar gebleven. Deze talk verkent de mogelijkheid en onmogelijkheid van intiem verzet van oudere vrouwen in een landschap dat hun kwaadheid niet lijkt te kunnen verdragen.

20:30-20:50: Statement by Vlasta Delimar - The right to an orgasm after 69 - English / Engels

Delimar will present an updated iteration of and statement on her ongoing series ‘The Right to an Orgasm at Over 60’, first performed between 2016 and 2019. In this work, Delimar stages herself in a public setting while holding a sign asserting the right to sexual pleasure later in life, a gesture that directly challenges the taboos imposed on older women and affirms sexuality as a fundamental human right. By bringing this performance into our event, she continues her bold advocacy for visibility, agency and the dismantling of ageist assumptions around intimacy.

==========> Reserve your spot + details here!