Olivia Plender is an artist based in Stockholm and London. Her work is based on historical research that analyses pedagogical methods and revolutionary social, political, and educational movements mainly of the 19th and 20th centuries. She finds her sources in archives, as well as through collaborations with contemporary community groups, in order to make installations, videos, drawings and paintings that address the present, intending to unmask and understand contemporary social structures and power relations.

Hag Nag Harpy Hen brings together work from several of Olivia Plender’s most recent projects, related to feminist history and her research into feminist and queer health activism. Many of the works focus on how communities have developed alternative systems to educate themselves about their bodies and health, countering the deficiencies of mainstream provision. Across components that include a new sound installation, as well as drawings and paintings, Plender highlights the relationship between ill health and structures of inequality. The exhibition also includes Hold Hold Fire, a video installation first shown at the 34th Bienal de São Paulo in 2021, about women’s self-defence.