Grace Before Meat - International Women's Day

Really great day spent with Louise Anderson creating an installation at the Stanley Picker Gallery for International Women's Day (Wednesday 7th March).

The work is a memorial to the men and women imprisoned in the name of equal suffrage while mulling over the present scenario for women. Louise had researched the archives of the Suffragette Movement, and a Roll of Honour (compiled anecdotally c.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 were assembled in situ and laid on a lawn, signifying the importance of remembrance in the centenary of The Representation of the People Act 1918. 

Sound and photographs taken from the Women's March on the preceding Sunday were edited into a short film and a 40 minute soundtrack - to help us reflect on 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.

The title 'Grace Before Meat' is adopted from a satirical leaflet about the force feeding of Suffragette prisoners and the poem of that title by Robert Burns was reproduced on antique starched linen napkins.