Processions Project

Processions is a UK wide art project created to celebrate the 100 years since the Representation of the People Act gave the first British women the right to vote and stand for public office. Community groups and artists across the UK designed and created banners and flags to represent their local areas and inspirational women. I believe that everyone should be treated equally no matter their gender or background, so I felt it was important to pay respect to the suffragettes and women who fought to give us the right to vote which kick started the equal rights movement.

I really enjoyed designing and creating the Thurrock banner at the Kinetika studios and it was very interesting learning the stories of many inspirational women from the local area.

Our part of the project was managed by Jo Beal, and over the bank holiday weekend in May we produced 5 banners representing 5 boroughs along the Thames estuary; Barking & Dagenham, Dartford, Thurrock, Gravesend and Southend-On-Sea.

A small team of local artists was dedicated to each borough and with the help of nominations from the local community, searched and researched for local inspirational women to be featured on the banners. Each team created a shortlist of 10 nominees which we all as a large group placed votes on our favourites in secret via email. Each finished banner features 3 inspirational local women, aiming to represent the past, present and future of each borough.

5^th & 6^th May 2018

We began the first workshop day by having a group meeting, introducing ourselves to the other borough teams and the ideas and plans behind their banners. After that we began to finalise our illustrations and the placings on the template so that we could trace them onto the final dot-and-cross template. One key feature of this is the river, across the five banners the end of one river is made to connect to the next as you travel along the river. To keep the designs similar and uniform we also made sure that the borders were all equal and added the text, ‘Women of the Estuary’ to the top and the relevant borough to the bottom border, with names of the inspirational women featured on the banner in the side borders. 

For the Thurrock banner we decided to position Fatima Whitbread; who is a famous Olympic athlete, in the centre as the image of her throwing the javelin is very prominent and stands out. We then positioned Kate Luard; a WW1 nurse, on the right of the banner and an image if a woman waxing silk and two children holding flags to represent the work of Kinetika within the community.

We placed a layer of plastic between the dot and cross template and the silk before beginning the first waxing. Then we started the first paint of the banner, using silk dyes, and making sure the backgrounds of each borough’s banner was the same shade of magenta and green for the border to create unity. 

On the second waxing for the Thurrock banner we decided to add designs to the background to reflect the Kinetika logo as well as military tents and badges to represent the work and life of WW1 nurse Kate Luard. On the second paint we went over the background and borders to give a strong purple colour and green to reflect the colour scheme of the suffragette movement.

10^th June 2018

On Sunday 10^th June 2018 we travelled to London for the London Processions march. The Kinetika group gathered near Green Park tube station at 11am before walking up to Marble Arch to join some of the other groups taking part, and to meet up with Ali Pretty; the leader of Kinetika, as she had arrived early for some interview preparations. We then unrolled our banners and put them onto the poles ready for the procession. After that we walked over to Hyde Park to get our Processions scarves and for some press photography. The Kinetika group were assigned purple scarves, which we could style whichever way we wanted; I chose a traditional sash style whereas others created hats and bows or just a simple scarf. 

We left Hyde Park at around 1:15pm to be in position for the national broadcast at 2pm. We had to walk fast to make our position near the front of the procession, through side streets which was an interesting view of London and the architecture was so lovely but there was no time to stop for photos as we had to make it in time. As the Procession was about to begin, the crowds of purple, green and white stripes gradually and quickly grew to march, the atmosphere was exciting and the crowds began to cheer as the helicopter flew overhead.  

At 3pm our group departed the main procession at Trafalgar Square as our leader Ali was being interviewed on BBC1! This was really exciting for me as this was the first time I have been on TV even though you can only spot me on screen for about 2 seconds I’m proud to have actually been able to see myself on the TV and that the banner I worked on was seen across the country! Woah! After the interview our group re-joined the rest of the procession towards the Houses of Parliament.

I’m really grateful to have been able to take part in this project and to help design and create a banner representing inspirational women from my local area. I believe that everyone should have equal rights, and I’m also really grateful to the thousands of women who thought for our right to vote over one hundred years ago!

I hope you enjoyed reading my post! Follow me on Instagram @emily.m.adventures and @princessemily_m for daily updates, and Twitter @EmilyMAdventure for info on my next blog.

Emily M x