What To Expect
When You're Not Expecting
Louise Ashcroft
Information
Time: 7:30pm
Tickets: Pay What You Can (Recommended Price £12)*
*All orders subject to a transaction fee of £2.
Running Time: 1 hour (no interval)
Age Recommendation: 16+
This performance takes place in person in our Council Chamber
Part-joke, part-public tantrum about inequality in the reproductive industry and the prohibitive cost of sperm; this show is a comical meditation on artist Louise Ashcroft’s reproductive challenges and fears of regret, loneliness and genetic obsolescence.
In an era of Tech Bros minting their own genomes as NFTs, and biohackers making dogs glow in the dark, what does it mean to spread your seed?
Attempting to build a DIY sperm bank outside her home, Louise reflects on who gets to have kids, who doesn’t, and what ‘beyond nuclear’ family might look like. Fashioned from an old bird hut, Louise’s ‘open sauce’ gene-vault is designed to bring her closer to her neighbours and get her child-hesitant girlfriend feeling broody.
A thought-provoking rant with an academic reading list, What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting rifles through the weirdest promo tat of the fertility trade fairs and asks Are there better ways we could all share the privileges and responsibilities of care?
This performance is part of Open Research: How to be Many Mothers?
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Biographies
Louise Ashcroft
Louise Ashcroft is a multidisciplinary artist and Champagne Anarchist who uses performance, humour, playfulness and comedy to ask difficult questions about society and culture, and challenge social conventions and hierarchies. Louise’s artistic and educational practice encompasses writing, sculpture and drawing as well as games, community projects and participatory experiences. They are currently in residence at Wysing Arts Centre with DASH Arts, making multi-sensory hoaxes with disabled young people. Their recent projects include ‘Real Stupidity’, a series of fake adverts for imaginary tech gadgets designed by comedians, commissioned by the responsible AI research organisation BRAID. Louise teaches Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, where they are a member of the Centre for Art and Ecology.
Credits
Written and Performed by Louise Ashcroft
Dramaturgy: Fritha Jenkins and Paula Crutchlow
Outside Eye: Dec Munro
Music: Meg Jenkins
Digital animation: Nathan Bather
Supported by Goldsmiths, University of London
Access
PRE EVENT INFORMATION
This event takes place in person in our Council Chamber. This space is on the first floor, with step-free access via a lift.
If you have booked a ticket you will receive an email from us before your performance detailing important information about your visit.
PERSONAL ASSISTANT/COMPANION TICKETS
If you require the assistance of a friend or helper to attend, we can make a free ticket available for your companion. You can book access companion tickets online or contact the Box Office to book by emailing boxoffice@bac.org.uk.
To book a free access companion online:
- log in to your account here
- go to ‘Other preferences’ and tick ‘I require a personal assistant/companion’.
- Choose the performance, date and seats you would like and if you add at least 2 tickets to your basket, then one of these will automatically become free.
PERFORMANCE INFORMATION
Content:
- Contains references to fertility issues.
All performances will be Relaxed. We invite you to make yourself comfortable and move around if you need to and if you need to leave the performance at any point you will be allowed to return to the space when you feel ready.
We want our shows to be as accessible to as many people as possible.
We offer tickets to most shows on a Pay What You Can basis throughout the year.
Tickets for Council Chamber performances in 2026 start at £9.50, and we have recommended pricing to help you choose a price that works for you.
We know that ticket price is a huge barrier for some. If you can afford to pay the recommended price or more, choosing to do so supports those that can’t. It makes it possible for us to continue to offer Pay What You Can and welcome those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend.
Part of Open Research: How to be Many Mothers?
In an exciting new partnership with Kaaitheater (Brussels), BAC expands the Open Research programme with a curated series of talks, workshops and performances exploring mothering, family, and care beyond the norm.
This artistic research program offers multiple entry points, ranging from playful speculative thinking to the creation of new scenarios for (chosen) family dynamics. It shares imaginative strategies for combining (co-)parenting with artistic practice, while also challenging and unmasking idealized notions of motherhood.
Also part of Open Research: How to be Many Mothers?
25 Apr
Monica: A Game for Diasporic Genealogies
Pablo Lilienfeld and Federico Vladimir
A workshop open to those interested in developing experimental dramaturgical tools or in exploring games as methods of artistic research.
25 Apr
Making and Unmaking Family:
Mothering as World-Building
Sophie K. Rosa
In this talk, Sophie K. Rosa explores ideas about mothering, family, and how new ways of living together might be imagined and made.
2 May
Domestic Anarchism:
Köket (The Kitchen)
Andrea Zavala Folache and Adriano Wilfert Jensen
Is it possible to both abolish the family and do group dancing?
2 May
Dynamic Families
Louise Ashcroft
In this workshop, Louise Ashcroft brings together elements of her ongoing artistic research into family, kinship, and relational dynamics.
2 May
CLOWNS - An unfinished mini lecture
Samra Mayanja
A series of unfinished mini-lectures that loosely explore a developing work.