Motive/Motif: artists commemorate the Suffragettes, London

 22.07.2018
Motive/Motif: artists commemorate the Suffragettes
Curated by Charlotte Hodes and Alison Moloney.
London College of Fashion

Artists: 
Ghada Amer, Chila Burman, Anthony Burrill, Jo Cope, Dorothy Cross, Phoebe English, Molly Goddard, Mona Hatoum, Charlotte Hodes, Anne Howeson, Peter Kennard, Sarah Lucas, Heather Phillipson, Celia Pym, Daniel Ramoso, Anila Rubiku, Francesca Smith, Helen Storey, Sage Townsend and Rachel Whiteread.

The exhibition consists of 20 handkerchiefs each created in collaboration with the specialist embroidery team at LCF.

The starting point for the exhibition was a piece of cloth embroidered in 1912 by Suffragettes imprisoned at Holloway Prison. Most of the 78 women who embroidered their signatures  participated in demonstrations organised by the Women’s Social & Political Union. They were denied the status of political prisoners and many were force-fed.
The contemporary handkerchiefs are presented alongside the historic cloth embroidered with the names of seventy-eight Suffragettes, courtesy of The Women’s Library Collection at LSE. The exhibition also included photographs and information about each of the Suffragettes through an AV installation prepared by London College of Fashion, UAL.