Registration opens today, International Women’s Day (8th March), for PROCESSIONS, one of the UK’s largest ever mass participation artworks, which will take place simultaneously across the four UK capitals on 10th June 2018.
PROCESSIONS is produced by Artichoke and commissioned by 14-18 NOW, the UK’s arts programme for the First World War centenary, and will mark one hundred years since the first British women won the right to vote.
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 which will celebrate a historic moment for gender equality and create a dramatic portrait of women in the 21st century.
On Sunday 10th June, participants in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London will walk together in their tens of thousands. Given green, white or violet to wear, to represent the colours of the suffrage movement and standing for “Give Women Votes”, they will together appear as a vast river of colour flowing through the city streets. At the heart of each procession will be specially created banners, echoing those carried by suffrage campaigners.
In the months leading up to PROCESSIONS, participants are invited to take part in a nationwide creative programme of banner-making workshops, or to create banners at home using a toolkit designed by contemporary banner-maker Clare Hunter which takes inspiration from a 1909 pamphlet by suffragette artist Mary Lowndes.
Clare Hunter, textile artist, writer and banner adviser for PROCESSIONS said: “I am delighted to be part of the creative team behind PROCESSIONS. 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. 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 today.”
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