Aberdeen’s Look Again visual art and design festival, a key cultural initiative of RGU, is working with a group of local young people to take part in PROCESSIONS, a UK-wide artwork project to celebrate one hundred years of votes for women.
The team, which is being led by Natalie Kerr in partnership with Aberdeen City Council, is made up of a collection of 12 young women (those who identify as women or non-binary) from Aberdeen, who are creating a bespoke banner and will take part in a mass walk in Edinburgh on June 10, with similar events taking place in Cardiff, Belfast and London.
As part of the project, one hundred female artists have been commissioned to work with organisations and communities across the UK to create one hundred centenary banners for PROCESSIONS as part of an extensive public programme of creative workshops.
The team from Aberdeen, ‘Granite Guardian Gals’, have been getting together for a series of workshops to discuss women’s right and identity and are then transferring these via artwork to a large banner.
Many of the young women haven’t met before and are relishing the opportunity to meet new people and work together on a project which they hope may last beyond the event in June.
Ella Skinner, who is currently a pupil at Robert Gordons College, commented; “I am really interested in where women are in society and where we want to be.
“I hope that this project will leave a lasting legacy for many more women to become involved in.”
Andi Shand, from Hazlehead Academy, added: “It’s been really good to find people who have the same opinions as me and this has given me the chance to meet new people and get out. I hadn’t met most of the girls before and I really hope we can go on to do more after the project ends.”
The wider project is being coordinated by Artichoke, a leading arts charity that works with artists to invade public spaces and put on extraordinary and ambitious events that live in the memory forever.
Natalie Kerr, who is leading the project for Look Again, added: “This has been a fantastic project to work on and the team have really come together and bonded as a group. Individually they are all active in their own communities in different ways but through this project we have had the chance to explore the suffragette history and how that translates to young women today.
“Our conversations have addressed what it means to use your voice to create change - to be powerful, confident and a strong young women. When we began talking I knew our banner would come from a place of passion and be unique to their own experiences as young women of Aberdeen.
“The creativity of everyone involved has been incredible and we are all very much looking forward to representing the North-east at the national event in Edinburgh in June.”
Once the group have completed the PROCESSION event in Edinburgh, their artwork will go on display during the Look Again Festival, from June 14, at the Maritime Museum.
Granite Guardian Gals