Notice to Uranians

5 June – 5 July, 2025

Rebuilding Urania with Angelina Radaković, Hamshya Rajkumar, Mason Leaver-Yap, and Renèe Helèna Browne

June 5th - July 5th 2025

This exhibition begins with Urania, a historic printed journal that foregrounded fluidity as an ideal model of gender and sexuality. Published between 1916 and 1940, Urania featured reprinted articles from newspapers worldwide alongside original editorial commentary, poetry, and prose. Its editors included Eva Gore-Booth and Esther Roper, partners in both activism and life; Irene Clyde, a pioneering feminist writer; Dorothy Cornish, a physician and women’s rights advocate; and Jessey Wade, known for her work as a writer and public speaker. Their ongoing critique of gender norms and advocacy for the erasure of sex-based distinctions positioned the journal as a radical voice in early 20th century feminist discourse.

Functioning like a community notice board, Urania gathered reflections, news, and visions from a dispersed network of thinkers committed to challenging the status quo. The journal highlighted recent gender transitions, questioned aspects of feminist discourse, and promoted its core belief that gendered socialisation is both artificial and harmful. It also provided space for sharing lived experiences, correspondence between contributors, and reflections on daily practices that resisted conventional gender expectations.

In its distinctive format, a black-inked, A3-folded newsprint, Urania linked personal transformation with broader political critique. Amidst the rise of fascism and global conflict, the editors sharpened the journal’s anti-war stance, framing war as a violent consequence of gendered thinking and authoritarian rule. They envisioned a world shaped by cooperation, individual freedom, and a rejection of hierarchical structures, offering a vision for a more egalitarian and liberated future.

Rebuilding Urania

Rebuilding Urania is a growing collection of invited audio responses to Urania, developed by Irish artist Renèe Helèna Browne. These contributions take the form of voice notes in which each contributor reads an article sent to them by Browne with the following invitation:

"I'd like to ask you to record yourself reading this article and respond to it. It doesn't have to be anything laborious, just saying how you felt about it - did it make you think of anything else? Were there any points of connectivity for you? Were there the opposite? Do you have something else to say that isn't here? I’d love it if you could think about where you might put yourself in space to do the reading and maybe mention these decisions in your response; are you on a walk, outdoors sitting down, in your bed, in the aisle of a shop? Is there a song playing in the background (random or chosen) or is it silent?"

This informal, invitational mode of the work is an attempt by Browne to create kinship, both with the contributors and conversations of the past, opening up new discussions on this radical historical journal.

Notice to Uranians at Catalyst Arts

For this episode of Rebuilding Urania, the gallery becomes a space for communal listening, centered around three contributions by Angelina Radaković, Hamshya Rajkumar, and Mason Leaver-Yap alongside a bench built together by the Catalyst Arts co-directors. Amid growing attempts to erase dissenting voices, listening becomes a way to hold space for voices that reimagine the world. You are invited to sit, stay, and return to the contributions, offering a moment of companionship across time. Notice to Uranians is the fifth episode of the project and the first public presentation in the North of Ireland. The contributions will also be broadcast on Radio Alharra during the exhibition - a Palestinian online radio station broadcasting from Bethlehem since its launch in March 2020.

The term ‘Uranians’ in the exhibition title refers to the writings of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a German writer and pioneer of sexology believed to have been the first person to publicly ‘come out’ in the modern sense. Between 1864 and 1879, Ulrichs published twelve volumes of essays titled Studies on the Riddle of Male-Male Love which elaborated his ‘theory of homosexuality’, in which he referred to the term Urning (Uranian) for a man who desires men. The journal's title Urania is a nod by its editors to Ulrichs’ work. In invoking the term ‘Uranians’, this project connects contemporary queer experiences to a longer lineage of dissident gender and sexual identities that defy containment and classification.

The fifth episode of Notice to Uranians has been co-produced by Catalyst Arts Co-Director, Seán Ward upon the completion of his 2 year directorship.

This exhibition has been supported by Arts Council Northern Ireland.