Grace Before Meat
2018.
Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston upon Thames
International Womens Day
Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston upon Thames
International Womens Day
Grace Before Meat (2018) was a collaborative project with Louise Anderson.
Having researched the archives of the Suffragette Movement and taken part in the Women’s March on Sunday 4th March, they created an installation on Wednesday 7th March 2018 for International Women’s Day – at the Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University. The title is adopted from a satirical leaflet about the force feeding of Suffragette prisoners.
The work is a memorial to the men and women imprisoned in the name of suffrage while mulling over the present scenario for women. A Roll of Honour, compiled anecdotally circa 1950, documents 1094 people imprisoned in the period 1905–1914. Many names are partial, and it is highly likely that many more had already been forgotten. The names we do have will be assembled in situ and laid on a lawn, signifying the importance of remembrance in the centenary of The Representation of the People Act 1918. While the sound in the room will originate from the Women’s March on Sunday 4th March and will signify the steps still to be taken. The World Economic Forum’s 2017 Global Gender Gap Report findings tell us that gender parity is still over 200 years away. One hundred years on from the Act, the campaign theme for International Women’s Day 2018 is #PressforProgress.
Each of the 1094 names were folded and placed in one day. Visitors to the Gallery could see the memorial build up over the course of the day and it was complete for the opening event, attended by the Mayor of Kingston - Julie Pickering.
Grace Before Meat from Jane Glennie on Vimeo.
