Women in Revolt!

Back to London to attend the Women in Revolt exhibition at the Tate Britain. This exhibit highlighted women between 1970-1990 and how they communicated activism through art. It was great to see all the printed materials, I was on the lookout for font inspiration for ‘Bright Renown’ and actually saw lots of examples of collage which has helped me think about my illustrated line-up. 

I can’t imagine that sketching out my collection is going to be a strength of mine. I like the idea of bringing garments together, intertwining them to create something new, and communicating this visually through collage; layering and weaving images together to come up with a proposed line-up. 

Back to the exhibition, my highlights included seeing artwork relating back to my first module on A Question of Research. More Greenham Common materials on display including some of the original banners from the march which I haven’t seen beyond photographs, as well as some Linder Sterling originals and videos of her performing. 

This piece by Ross incorporates collage, spider webs created with string, bits of the metal mesh fencing which is iconic to the protest as well as cut out hands.

“We aimed, like the women at Greenham that collaged… to open up emotional responses, to confront fear and helplessness and displace them with energy and power.”

I found this piece particularly poignant as it felt like there was a link to female cycles and nature’s seasons that I picked up on at the Re:sister’s exhibition. “If there are rhythms in the body that you can understand, then maybe you can understand social rhythms, cosmic rhythms, historical rhythms”.

I like how the contraceptive pill is used to represent the lunar cycles as well as the menstrual cycle and the juxtaposition of the traditional presentation of the artwork even though bodily fluids and hormones are messy and unpredictable. 

As Clark describes Cycle “It is put out in an ordered way… it is so dangerous that if it was out of control, it would be totally unacceptable.” I feel like this is a reflection of how women are seen in society, how we have to shapeshift and fit within the mould of patriarchal expectations, to be seen as ordered and in control. To be independent and free of those rules, would disrupt the order of things and be considered ‘dangerous’. 

This piece felt particularly relevant to my gendered items project. The artist dressed as white goods from within the domestic sphere. The soundtrack of BBC’s Woman’s Hour was playing alongside the artists performance which Chadwick described as :

“The kitchen must inevitably be seen as the archetypal female domain where the fetishism of kitchen appliance reigns supreme. By highlighting and manipulating this familiar domestic milieu, I have attempted to express the conflict that exists between … the manufactured consumer ideal / physical reality, plastic glamour images / banal routine, conditioned role-playing / individuality.”

Thinking about women’s magazines in the 1960’s and how housewives were advertised to. It was very aspirational to be the perfect wife and create the perfect home whilst your husband was out being the breadwinner so I agree that domestic appliances were fetishised to sell the perfect white picket lifestyle and I love that women were creating art to subvert that narrative.

I’ve also chosen this piece to talk about, because it uses textiles and layering, knitting and embellishing to accentuate “the responsibilities a mother must ‘bear in mind’ while holding her family together”.

It felt apt with everything else that my project focuses on and very similar to Greenham Common, using crafts to communicate a message. The piece is created to “Highlight the many roles a mother is expected to take on [in]… domesticity, motherhood and marriage.”

References :

Women in revolt! Art and activism in the UK 1970-1990. 8 November 2023 – 7 April 2024. Tate Britain, London.

Linder, Untitled, 1976

Monica Ross, Morning at the Blue Gate, 1983

Judy Clark, Cycle, 1973

Helen Chadwick, In the Kitchen, 1977

Su Richardson, Bear it in Mind, 1976