PROCESSIONS is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take part in a mass participation artwork to celebrate one hundred years of votes for women.
Thousands of women* and girls from across the UK will walk together in public processions on Sunday 10 June, forming a living portrait of women in the 21st century and a visual expression of equality, strength and cultural representation. PROCESSIONS celebrates the fight for suffrage and expresses what it means to be a woman today.
As Redbridge was home to Ethel Haslam and other suffragettes who were famously arrested on the boating lake at Valentines Park in May 1914 for displaying a banner promoting the cause, Vision Redbridge Culture & Leisure who manage the park and cultural services would like the women of Redbridge to be represented on the Procession with banners inspired by their own lives or celebrating local female trailblazers. So please get involved, you could make your banner with a community group, friends or family, craft groups, faith groups or colleagues or you could submit some words or small sentences about what it means to be a woman today, post your thoughts below on our blog, emerging themes will then be incorporated into a main banner design. You can also request small templates to work on pieces for inclusion in the main banner which the team at Valentines Mansion will be making over the course of 6-weeks to create our own little piece of history!
If you want to work in your own group to make a Processions banner, it should represent the lives, ideas, hopes and concerns of women today. It should be bold, beautiful and uniquely yours. Whatever you put on it should be heartfelt. Onlookers will only have a short time to see its message during the parade, so make it simple, punchy and clear.
Guidance on how to make a banner
Basic requirements: Please make sure that you incorporate green, white and violet, the Suffragette and Processions colours into your banner somewhere. You can choose any shades of these colours and can do anything from the Processions logo stitched in the corner – to the whole thing being made from these colours.
Back your banner in black or very dark material. This is so we will be able to pick them out in photos.
Share your work!
Document the making of your banner and share your images online @DoMoreRed @Processions2018 and #PROCESSIONS2018 . If you can also tag @ArtichokeTrust and @1418NOW that would be great.
PROCESSIONS is commissioned by 14-18 NOW, the UK’s arts programme for the First World War centenary and produced by Artichoke.
For more information or to register for 10 June visit the Processions website
Find out more about the 14-18 NOW arts programme
Don’t forget to leave a reply below with any words or thoughts you have on being a woman today.
*those who identify as women or non-binary
Post Author: Cathy Pace
Do More 
The future is female 💕💕💕