ONE of the UK’s largest ever mass participation artworks is to take place in Edinburgh to mark the centenary of women’s right to vote.
Thousands clad in the suffrage colours of violet, green and white will create a river of colour in the streets of Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast and London on June 10.
As well as celebrating a historic moment for gender equality, the event is expected to create a dramatic portrait of women in the 21st century.
Many will be carrying banners created specially for the day, echoing those carried by suffrage campaigners on their marches.
Workshops are currently taking place up and down the country from Shetland to Peebles, with groups working on banners for the event, using an online toolkit created by Scottish textile artist Clare Hunter (pictured below). This has been produced in honour of suffragette artist Mary Lowndes whose 1909 pamphlet gave women tips on how to make banners for their marches.
“Unlike the original banners carried by women in the Scottish rallies of the early 20th century which were lost or thrown away, these banners will remain a part of history for years to come,” said Hunter. “They will be made by women of different ages, cultures and backgrounds and represent an exciting new body of textile art, celebrating what it means to be a woman in the 21st century.”
WHO IS MAKING THEM?
SEVERAL Scottish organisations have been specially commissioned to make banners for the event, including the Scottish Refugee Council and The Tannahill Centre in Paisley. Their workshops aim to reach a diverse body of women stretching across all ages, backgrounds, beliefs, geographies and sexualities, with the resulting banners providing a snapshot of women’s experiences today.
Edinburgh College of Art researcher, lecturer and artist Lindy Richardson is working with Edinburgh University staff and students in collaboration with women prisoners in both HMP Edinburgh and HMP and YOI Cornton Vale (Stirling). A key part of this process will be discussions generated around the issues of voting rights for disenfranchised groups in society.
Glasgow Women’s Library are working with print artist Helen de Main and local women from the city to create a banner. They are also helping the Scottish Refugee Council to support a discussion and banner-making session with women from the refugee community in Glasgow, working with Iranian artist Paria Goodarzi.
Meanwhile in Stornoway, An Lanntair is working with Harris Tweed weaver and textiles historian Chris Hammacott and the Hebrides Women’s Network to produce a banner representing Island Women. Their workshops will coincide with the touring of new play Deeds not Words in collaboration with theatre company Rural Nations exploring the role of Hebridean women in the suffrage movement.
AND HUNTER?
MANY groups around the country are using the toolkit created by Hunter. Her interest in banner making was sparked when she was working as a community artist in Nottinghamshire in 1984 at the beginning of the miners’ strike.
“I was invited by Mansfield Trades Council to help with the May Day parade but only one third of the miners in Nottinghamshire came out striking so they weren’t able to use their union banners,” she said.
“They started making other ones to take with them on picket lines and I thought it was a fantastic medium – a simple way of publicly saying who you are and what you are standing for.
“As it turned out, the May Day parade was huge with miners coming from as far as Scotland to try and cajole the Nottinghamshire miners to come out. It was a terrible time because of the family divides and also because the government decided to make that area a test ground for tactics against civil disobedience. It ended up with police surrounding tiny villages – it was quite extraordinary.”
WHAT HAPPENED THEN?
AS a result of her experience, Hunter decided to set up Needleworks, a community textile business in her home city of Glasgow. The aim was to involve people who might not have formal qualifications. One of its most ambitious projects was Keeping Glasgow in Stitches involving more than 600 people making banners for the city’s Year of Culture in 1990.
Now she is working on a book about the social and political significance of needlework with a chapter on banners.
Hunter points out that they have been used for centuries and at first came from the heraldic traditions.
“Wearing your colours was used very early on as a spectacle of power and wealth,” she said.
When it came to the civil unrest of the 17th and 18th centuries, people began to make banners about their cause. Then in the 19th century, London-based firm George Tuthill, devised a system for creating a rubberised solution on jacquard silk so the banners could be painted on both sides and were also waterproof. “They could be made really big and he began to make all these wonderful trade union banners,” said Hunter. “You could have as much imagery as you wanted and no trade union worth its salt was without a Tuthill banner. Some were so big they had to be wheeled down the street.”
WHAT WAS THEIR INSPIRATION?
TRADE union banners were influenced by Masonic imagery but the suffragettes decided to embrace their femininity.
“When the suffragettes came along they decided that as they had been accused of being masculine and desexed they wanted to portray their femininity so they chose to make banners in brocades, silks and velvets,” said Hunter. “They were deliberately feminine and chose to take materials out of the drawing room and into the street. They did that in huge numbers and the banners were very different from those that came before, being more subtle with imagery like hearts and flowers.”
Banners are still useful today, Hunter believes.
“A banner is like a proclamation from a group,” she said. “It very quickly tells people who you are and where you come from and what it is that you want to tell them. They are bold and have a certain energy because they are made from fabric and ripple in the wind. They are still very potent for lots of people.”
It is going to be a really memorable and fantastic event,” she said. “People don’t need to worry about what to wear as Artichoke will be handing out tabards in the colours. They don’t need to carry things but if they want to it could be something as small as a pennant.”
Women and girls – including those who identify as women and non-binary individuals – are invited to register at www.processions.co.uk to take part in this “once-in-a-lifetime living artwork”.
Hunter’s book Threads of Life will be published by Sceptre next spring.
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