PROCESSIONS Banners made in North England

Artist: Angela Hall

Contributors: Rural Arts North Yorkshire

Location: Thirsk

Materials: mixed textiles

This banner is a celebration of women and girls from rural North Yorkshire, set against a backdrop of the agricultural market town of Thirsk and the rural landscape of the North Yorkshire Moors.

The group decided to make a statement piece that would stand out in a crowd.  ‘All Women Standing Together’ reflects the diversity of the community and the contribution that women make to the local economy. 

This is highlighted in the side panels, which capture MP Joan Maynard, who championed agricultural workers’ rights, the first Champion female butcher, women working in agriculture, and women’s organisations, including the Women’s Institute (WI).

Artist: Jean McEwan

Contributors: The Brick Box

Location: Bradford

Materials: mixed textiles

The group wanted to express that theirs is a city that nurtures strong women who connect with each other to take action and make change together. The group is proud of the great spirit of co-operation and solidarity in Bradford, which brings women together from all backgrounds. They wanted to celebrate and shout about this.  

The green chosen for the backing colour refers to Bradford Women for Peace, a local campaigning group that gave out lime green ribbons in response to the EDL coming to the city in recent years. This sent a message of harmony, peace and unity, and has become a powerful symbol in Bradford.

Artists: Jane Cuthbert and Kate Pounder 

Contributors: PROCESSIONS Middlesbrough group. With Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

Location: Middlesbrough

Materials: netting, mixed textiles

The banner brought together women from across MIMA’s programmes. This included members of Creative Age, a group living with dementia and their care-givers and family, Cultural Conversations, which uses the MIMA collection to make new friends and practice speaking and listening skills to learn English, and Mini MIMA, a group for early years with their adult/s.

Collectively, the group represents women of all ages, faith and colour. The group shared stories of women in members’ own worlds and celebrated these amazing conversations using craft, gentle activism and the handmade. 

For the group, the project is about hope, the future and moving forward.  It’s a call to action.

Artists: textile artist, Kate Reid, spoken word artist, Ann Grant

Contributors: Brewery Arts Centre

Location: Kendal

Materials: mixed textiles

The group wanted to depict a Cumbrian woman, who they agreed they can be hard-working, proud and ‘say-it-how-it-is’. Some group members often say ‘woman up’ instead of ‘man up’. 

The message on this banner is, ‘Woman up and Roar’. Around the edges are the words, ‘You stand on Helvellyn and scream for your soul / it echoes right back and stays there’. 
  
The words around the edges of the banner are from a poem by Ann Grant. The poem is about belonging to Cumbria and being working class. It was read out during the group’s discussions and the group then agreed that it summed up what they wanted to say.

Artist: Jackie Haynes

Contributors: The Whitworth

Location: Manchester

Materials: cotton

The banner aims to communicate both individual and collective voices. The group began by looking at selected works from The Whitworth Collection. They referred to, amongst others, a list of artists whose work was attacked by the Suffragettes, drawn up by the Emily Davison Lodge group.

Artist: Ella Dorton 

Contributors: participants from the Boulevard Centre, Hull. With Artlink Hull

Location: Hull

Materials: mixed textiles

The girls who made the banner have a lot of responsibility in their lives at a young age. The artist facilitated an exploration of the real-life struggles and issues that affect them, 100 years on from women gaining the right to vote. The group is now very much aware that their voices matter and that they should use their voices to shape their future.

The participants are attendees at two centres of alternative provision for pupils who are unable to access mainstream education. Although the girls are too young to vote, the group felt that it was important that a youth voice was represented in the project.

Artist: Karina Thompson 

Contributors: Junction Arts with women and girls from across Bolsover District, Chesterfield

Location: Chesterfield

Materials: digitally printed cotton, beads, lace, mixed textiles

This banner features the smiles of 100 women, who were chosen because of their significance to the group.  They range from international household names to ‘ordinary’, local women: fictional and real; historical and contemporary; mothers, sisters and daughters; writers, actresses and comedians; scientists, astronauts and adventurers; politicians, campaigners and activists; sportswomen, designers and artists.

The group worked collaboratively in collecting the ‘smiles’ and in the creation of the lettering. The group were asked to think carefully about who should be on the banner and to have fun creating it.  Through the banner, the group want to celebrate the lives of these women, whilst also giving advice to their contemporaries. 

Artists: Pauline Taylor and Theresa Easton  

Contributors: Thorntree Roses, Middlesbrough, Tees Valley Arts, Navigator North and Kirkleatham Museum, Redcar. With Festival of Thrift. Participant names:  Kendra, Christine, Pat, Miki, Pat L, Rebecca, Michelle, Marie, Victoria, Pam, Janet, Karin, Liz, Helen, Liz, Denise, Anne, Elenor, Christine, Jane, Susan, Rose

Location: Redcar, Tees Valley

Materials: screen printed silk, wool, chiffon, cotton, Harris tweed, polyester

This banner was commissioned by Festival of Thrift and jointly designed and made by women of the Tees Valley. ‘Women of steel’ refers to the production of steel at Redcar with iron ore from the Cleveland Hills, but it is also about the strength of the women who have lived in this coastal region for many years, supporting industry, farming, fishing and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

This project made the group look at what women went through 100 years ago to gain the vote, and has made the members want to do more to ensure that women continue to gain equality in the future.

An international group of women from 18 different countries joined together to design and sew, whilst drawing strength, inspiration, encouragement and empowerment from each other. Through the calmness of this activity, the group learned the differences and deep similarities between them.

Inspired by the 1913 banner of the NUWSS, this banner expresses fresh hopes and renewed aspirations of women for the present and future.  

Artist: Victoria Frausin

Contributors: The Dukes Theatre/East Meets West group

Location: Lancaster

Materials: cotton, polyester, mixed textiles 

Artist: Helen Walsh with support artist, Katie Lock

Contributors: Prism Arts

Location: Carlisle

Materials: chenille, cotton, velvet, cord, organza 

The group wanted to create a banner that represented them now, whilst also expressing their hopes for the future and recognising where they have come from. The design incorporates a heart shaped pendulum, which has settled in the centre and is entwined with the word 'Respect'. 

The arc of the pendulum is described in running stitch and represents how the balance of power swings back and forth. By showing the pendulum in the centre, the group aimed to show how, by respecting each other's views and rights, a point of equality can be reached.    

Artist: Emma Shankland

Contributors: Berwick Visual Arts

Location: Berwick-upon-Tweed

Materials: mixed textiles

The setting for this silk banner is Berwick-upon-Tweed’s Royal Border Bridge. It is built anew with women’s faces, past and present. Framing them are embroidered birds of freedom and words of empowerment, whilst a rainbow of diversity and hope arcs in the background. Everyone involved in the creation of this banner explored new mediums, materials and traditional styles to create this huge labour of love, friendship and discovery.    

Artist: Michelle Wood   

Contributors: GemArts/GVEMSG Feel Good Group, Gateshead

Location: Gateshead

Materials: mixed fabrics, sari silk, buttons, beads, digital print, lino print, fabric paint

The group created their banner to show reflections of the past and hope for a better future. A central lotus flower, representing harmony and equality, is framed by 100 handmade flowers celebrating 100 years of the first women to get the right to vote. Within the lotus leaves, the word ‘vote’ is embroidered in the different languages spoken within the group.
 
Symbolising the diverse voices of the Suffragette movement, an image of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, an accredited physician who pioneered the cause of women's rights in Britain, is featured. For the group, the right to vote means ‘change, freedom and respect’.

Artist: Kate Davies 

Contributors: Manchester Parents Group. With Sparkle

Location: Manchester

Materials: printed calico

The banner is inspired by the Manchester Suffragette banner which originally appeared alongside Emmeline Pankhurst at a protest rally held in Stevenson Square in the centre of Manchester in 1908 and is currently on display in the city’s People’s History Museum.

Designed by Kate Davies of Passionfly, the graphic artist responsible for Sparkle – The National Transgender Charity’s unique visual identity, the ‘Unity in Diversity’ slogan is taken from the charity’s current campaign, appealing for allies to the trans and non-binary community. Printed by Contrado Imaging, the use of calico is a reference to Manchester’s rich textile heritage.

Artist: Cristina Lina

Contributors: Wheel Meet Again, Asylum Link, Harthill Youth Centre, Picton Roma Community, Picton Children's Centre, Metal Open Session. With Metal Culture Liverpool

Location: Liverpool

Materials: gaffa tape, PVC

Metal Culture, Liverpool made banners with various women-only groups from around the Picton area of Liverpool.  This banner was made with Asylum Link. Each group decided on a unique phrase for their banner, following a sharing of the participants' own experiences of being a woman in Liverpool today. 

Some of the banners have incorporated the native languages of the women involved, displaying phrases such as, 'This Girl Can' and, 'Women Together'. They have been made using gaffa tape on tarpaulin, DIY materials that reflect the independent spirit of the women involved.

Artist: Jacky Puzey

Contributors: Lakes Alive

Location: Kendal

Materials: mixed textiles

Showing embroidered silhouettes on a background of landscape and industry, this unique and intricate banner created by Lakes Alive and 15 women, represents five important women in Cumbria in the early to mid-1900s.  It embodies some of the issues that are still faced by women, including the gender pay gap, gender stereotypes, and ownership of women's bodies. 

From the landscape, a striking map of the Watling Street March emerges, a route which saw 50,000 women pilgrimage from Carlisle to London to protest their vote in 1913, a truly inspiring moment in the history of northern women, which the group wanted to celebrate.  

Artist: Jasleen Kaur

Contributors: Sandra, Clare, Abbie, Angel, Jean, Siobhan and Debra. With Link4Life/Touchstones

Location: Rochdale

Materials: mixed textiles

Women from Rochdale collectively worked with artist, Jasleen Kaur through a number of creative writing exercises. They created the banner through responding to various questions around what it means to be a woman in Britain today, based around the theme of home and nostalgia. 

Inspired by handmade protest banners from current and historical political events, the women considered how they could produce powerful and meaningful pieces of writing. By merging their messages, the group selected words that reflected them as individuals to a create a strong and meaningful banner. Experimenting with colour and patterns, they added appropriate details and symbols.

Artist: Alison Garner

Contributors: The Quilters' Guild: Region 1, Region 2, Region 6 and attendees of The Quilters’ Guild 2018 AG

Location: York

Materials: mixed textiles

The idea of the banner came from the corporate identity of the Quilters’ Guild. Their use of squares to denote quilted patches gave an idea of a quilted banner using the Suffragette colours. Shades of green, white and purple were cut and sewn together to give the impression of a quilt.

The ‘shadow forms’ are outlines of quilters, both modern and from 100 years ago - connecting quilters who would have fought for the vote, to the quilters of today who proudly use their vote. The embroidered crosses denote women’s right to make their mark.