Knitting Circle Simon Watney
The Knitting Circle: Staffroom
Biography,work.
Simon WatneyBorn 13th. March, 1949, in Leatherhead, Britain.British academic, AIDS and gay activist, cultural theorist, media analyst, and art historian.
Full name: Simon Peter Watney.
From 1967 to 1970 he was at University of Sussex and obtained a BA in History & Theory of Art.
From 1970 to 1971 he was at Brighton Polytechnic and obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Education.
He became involved withGay Liberation Front (GLF)in the winter of 1970 and helped to establish the Sussex GLF in Brighton the following year.
From 1971 to 1974 he was a lecturer in Art History in the Faculty of Art & Design at Brighton Polytechnic.
He participated in several community organisations in the early 1970s, and he also began to regularly contribute to the British lesbian and gay press
He moved to London in 1975 and joined theGay Left Collectivetwo years later.
During 1975-76 he obtained an MA in History of Art at The Courtauld Institute, University of London.
From 1976 to 1986 he was a lecturer in the History & Theory of Photography in the School of Communication at the Polytechnic of Central London.
In the late 1970s he joined the editorial board ofScopemagazine, and wrote as an art critic and photographic historian.
In 1984 he he began to become involved in AIDS issues. In 1986 he helped to organise the first UK conference on AIDS and the role of the media. Until 1991 he was involved full-time with AIDS work in various capacities.
In 1987 he was awarded the The Gustavus Meyer Prize for the Study of Human Rights from the University of Tennessee, for his bookPolicing Desire.
In 1990 he was one of the founders ofOutRage!.
Also in 1990 he was awarded The US Words Project, Gregory Kolovakos Prize for his bookTaking Liberties.
From 1991 to 1999 he was Executive Director of The Red Hot AIDS Charitable Trust.
In 2001 he was awardedThe Pink PaperAnnual Lifetime Achievement Award for promoting and understanding of lesbian and gay life, and for his HIV/ AIDS campaigning work,
with The Mike Rhodes Trust, London.
He has written extensively on HIV and AIDS and has attempted to challenge the well-established scientific approaches to conducting medical trials. He has been a long-term member ofTerrence Higgins Trust.
He began to work in the field of sculpture conservation, and he became the Conservation Cases Recorder of the Church Monuments Society.
Work- The Ideology of GLF, 1980, published by theGay Left Collective.
- English Post-Impressionism, 1980, published in London by Studio Vista.
- Policing Desire: Pornography AIDS and the Media, 1987, published in London by Comedia/Methuen.
- Taking Liberties: AIDS and Cultural Politics, co-edited with Erica Carter, 1989, published in London by Serpent's Tail.
- The Art of Duncan Grant, 1990.
- The Spectacle of AIDS, 1993.
- An essay inH. Abelove, M. A. Barale, and D. M. Halperin, (Editors), "e;The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader"e;, (1993).
- Practices of Freedom: Selected Writings on HIV/AIDS, 1994, published in London by Rivers Oram Press.
- Wolfgang Tillmans, 1995, published in Cologne by Taschen.
- Imagine Hope: AIDS & Gay Identity, 2000, published in London by Taylor & Francis.
Biography,work.
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The Knitting Circle
administrator@knittingcircle.org.ukFirst uploaded 22nd. August, 2001.
Last altered 3rd. February, 2003