Fabric of Protest Session 4: Starting the banner!

Artist Helen Mather has been working with the Learning Team at PHM to run monthly textile workshops The Fabric of Protest where participants can create their own piece of protest art in response to the museum’s collections and learn new textile techniques. The group are currently looking at the Match Girls’ Strike of 1888 and working on a banner piece to commemorate the bravery of the young women and the start of unionism as we know it today.

You can read Helen’s latest blog post about the most recent session. You can follow the group’s journey on Helen’s tumblr blog.

We had a number of new participants this month working alongside our regulars doing some excellent stitching and creative collaborations.

We welcomed a group of lecturers in textiles and fashion from Huddersfield University, a London fashion student about to go on her travels around Europe and two women who were off to do some cycling activism (there’s definitely a banner in there somewhere!).

We discussed the project so far and the ideas behind the Match Girl banner before setting to work on the first job, stitching the words. We used a mixture of appliqué and trapunto quilting to raise the surface of the letters. It was a great start and its exciting to see something grow from everyone’s contributions.

One of our regulars, Tricia has been attending a broadcasting course at all FM in Levenshulme and was armed with a zoom recorder to interview participants, Lisa and myself about the work we have been doing together. She was pretty impressive behind the mic, a natural it seems! We look forward to hearing her piece once its been edited.

A lot of tea drinking and chatting whilst stitching, ideas and conversations flowing freely, exchanges of knowledge and skills passing effortlessly, what a great session! Thank you to all who attended, I hope you had as much fun as I did, though it really did go too fast…

The next Fabric of Protest workshop will be on Saturday 20 August. Future workshops are Thurs 15 September, Sat 22 Oct and Thurs 17 Nov

 

The Fabric of Protest Monthly Workshop

Artist Helen Mather has been working with the Learning Team at the museum to run textile workshops that explore and respond to collections and displays. Following the success of these workshops, Helen will be running a monthly The Fabric of Protest workshop where participants can create their own piece of protest art that reflects the issues that are important to them.

Starting this Friday 15 April, Helen will be asking participants to the use a range of protest materials, including ribbons, rosettes, patches, flags and badges, to contribute to an art piece using their slogan for change. Participants will produce individual pieces that will combine to create a collaborative installation that will be displayed in the museum. Participants can attend an individual workshop or join us on a regular basis to shape how the installation develops. Groups can book onto these sessions by contacting Lisa Gillen on 0161 838 9190 or emailing learning@phm.org.uk

You can find more about the previous fabric workshops Helen has held at the museum on her tumblr blog.

Or you can visit the museum to see the installation from The Fabric of Protest workshops Helen recently held for International Women’s Day; this is on display until the end of April 2016.  In these workshops participants created their slogans of change for women today.

The Fabric of Protest workshops will run on Fri 15 April, Fri 13 May, Sat 18 June, Fri 15 July & Sat 20 August, 1.30-3.30pm. You can book onto these via Eventbrite or by calling the museum on 0161 838 9190.