Anne Kernan

ALONGSIDE live music, a dog show and games for kids, a family fun day is hosting a Q&A with Anne Kernan about her new book, C**t is the Word.

The artist said she is aiming to reclaim her “favourite word” from misplaced derogatory and sexist connotations.

Ahead of her Q&A, she told the Tribune: “I’ve always really loved it. There are people who really are against it and I don’t think they should be. It’s considered to be the worst word but there are far worse words such as racist or homophobic words. But the whole thing about this is anybody can be a c**t, it’s not directed at anybody in particular so I wanted to celebrate that.

“I think words like bitch, whore, slag, slut are really gendered because you don’t use them for men at all, but you could call a man a c**t so I don’t think it’s a sexist word.

“If you use it in a way that isn’t with hatred, that’s what makes it funny you use something so casually and I think that makes it funny for me.”

Last December she published her photo book that has had a “really positive reception”, even from people who don’t like using the word. Each page depicts the word spelt out using different objects from Sindy dolls to leeks.

An image from Ms Kernan’s photo book

During the pandemic, Ms Kernan got the idea for the project when a friend remarked that she would send a birthday card with an image of a cat on it to her every year.

“I thought if I had to do that for someone, what would I do? If I had to give someone the same card every year I decided it would have the word on it,” she said.

In 2021 she started the project with the aim of creating an image using embroidery, photography and Photoshop to spell ‘c**t’ every single day for a year. But each image took longer than expected so she didn’t see it through till the end of the year.

Ms Kernan said: “It’s an A5 book and each day is a different one. Some I did are around a particular day, such as on St Patrick’s Day I took a photo of toy snakes spelling the word. For St David’s Day I used leeks. Other days were just random. It’s mainly to do with humour.”

At the festival on August 24, which is free to attend, there will be actifities for children including tug of war, balloon animals, a bouncy castle and face-painting.

The dog show starts at 1pm. Sixties soul icon PP Arnold will perform, and you can try your local knowledge with a Clerkenwell quiz and pick up some rare items at a rock ’n’ roll jumble sale.