COLLECT OPEN 2022
I will be taking part in Collect 2022 at Somerset House in London, as part of Collect Open.
This is a truly prestigious and wonderful event from the Crafts Council, excitement and trepidation abound to be able to stage an idea I have had brewing for a long time: Lifespan 82.9
The average lifespan of a woman in the UK is 82.9 (at the time of the initiation of this project)
I am creating a body of work arising from the changing experiences of female upbringing over these years, or what has stayed the same, through the years from 1939 to the present.
Over the last year this has become a very personal project, my mother is now this age. Reading her illustrated memoir of her own upbringing has led to consideration and discussion around the changes she has seen in how girls are brought up, and how this has been reflected in what has changed in the wider world. Looking at her childhood and comparing it with successive generations has been a starting point for research.
I have been struck by recurring themes despite the changing zeitgeist. Life has changed, childhood has changed, and often this seems a linear phenomenon but I look for themes and issues that recur although they may manifest in different ways.
The more I have contemplated, spoken to their women and girls, and looked at the world today, the more this has emerged as a mobilisation, a march forward of all the generations of those girls brought up with expectations and hopes. Change is still very much a work in progress, and frustration with reflected in the work. For so many movements, so many marches or small acts of change, girls have been present or at the forefront.
We still march.
I will be taking part in Collect 2022 at Somerset House in London, as part of Collect Open.
This is a truly prestigious and wonderful event from the Crafts Council, excitement and trepidation abound to be able to stage an idea I have had brewing for a long time: Lifespan 82.9
The average lifespan of a woman in the UK is 82.9 (at the time of the initiation of this project)
I am creating a body of work arising from the changing experiences of female upbringing over these years, or what has stayed the same, through the years from 1939 to the present.
Over the last year this has become a very personal project, my mother is now this age. Reading her illustrated memoir of her own upbringing has led to consideration and discussion around the changes she has seen in how girls are brought up, and how this has been reflected in what has changed in the wider world. Looking at her childhood and comparing it with successive generations has been a starting point for research.
I have been struck by recurring themes despite the changing zeitgeist. Life has changed, childhood has changed, and often this seems a linear phenomenon but I look for themes and issues that recur although they may manifest in different ways.
The more I have contemplated, spoken to their women and girls, and looked at the world today, the more this has emerged as a mobilisation, a march forward of all the generations of those girls brought up with expectations and hopes. Change is still very much a work in progress, and frustration with reflected in the work. For so many movements, so many marches or small acts of change, girls have been present or at the forefront.
We still march.
