Artichoke and 14-18 NOW invite women across the UK to take part in artwork to celebrate the centenary of the women's vote.
- Mass participation artwork on 10 June 2018 will create living portrait of women today
- Participants to wear suffragette colours of green, white or violet to form flowing bands of colour through the streets
- 100 women artists commissioned to work with communities across the UK to create 100 centenary banners
Women* and girls across the UK are invited to come together on the streets of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London on Sunday 10 June 2018 for PROCESSIONS, a mass participation artwork to mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act, which gave the first British women the right to vote. The work is produced by Artichoke, the UK’s largest producer of art in the public realm, as part of 14-18 NOW, the UK’s official arts programme for the First World War centenary. The artwork will unite and inspire women from all walks of life in a living, moving portrait of women in the UK in the 21st century.
Participants will wear green, white or violet to reflect the suffragette colours, and will be choreographed so that they appear as vast flowing bands of colour.
One hundred women artists are being commissioned to work with communities across the UK to create one hundred centenary banners for PROCESSIONS. Arts and community organisations will work with artists up and down the country in an extensive public programme of creative workshops. The women who came together on the streets a hundred years ago made themselves visible with handmade flags, banners, pins and rosettes. The workshops will focus on text and textiles, echoing the practices of the women’s suffrage campaign, and the banners made will represent and celebrate the diverse voices of women and girls from different backgrounds.
The processions will start on Park Lane and will finish at Abingdon Street, SW1P 3JY.
*those who identify as women or non-binary