Metal Culture: Southend-on-Sea

This banner celebrates Women of Essex. It includes Suffragettes who had Essex connections, women from the ‘Clever Essex’ project who achieved great things in literature, science, theatre and politics in the wider world, and contemporary women active in the ‘Essex Girls Liberation Front’, who exist to challenge the negative connotations around the ‘Essex Girl’ stereotype. The quote came from Essex Suffragette, Amy Hicks, at a rally in Colchester in 1908, who said that campaigners for women’s suffrage were ‘neither freaks nor frumps!’.

The digitally-printed collage aesthetic is appropriated from the iconic Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s album cover, while the handmade and embroidered flowers honour the memory of the women who ‘Dared to be Free’.

Metal was founded in London in 2002 by Jude Kelly CBE, working with current Artistic Director, Colette Bailey since inception. They have been active in Liverpool since 2004, in Southend-on-Sea since 2007 and in Peterborough since 2012. In each place, they work from buildings of historic significance that they have transformed from empty or derelict spaces into vibrant cultural community hubs.