Highland Women Making History banners go on display at Strathpeffer Pavilion – which has close links to suffragette trailblazer Emmeline Pankhurst
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A SPECTACULAR representation of women making history is unveiled today at an iconic Ross-shire venue.
The three Highland banners from a giant, UK-wide collaborative art project will go on display at Strathpeffer Pavilion from Wednesday, September 22 to Friday, September 24.
The Women Making History project say creatives from across the country rising to the challenge of telling remarkable stories through textile art.
Highland artists Alex Patience, Heidi Soos and Lizzie McDougall are now thrilled to be showing all three banners together – and inviting all the women who took part in making them and the wider public to the Pavilion for the chance to see them.
Women on the north coast, Ross-shire’s east and west coasts and Inverness all took part in making the banners, combining many art and craft techniques and lots of materials, creativity and imagination.
Ms McDougall, a noted local artist and storyteller in Ross-shire, said: "They are a unique celebration of women living in the Highlands."
The three Highland Banners were made to take part in the ‘Once in a Lifetime' mass participatory artwork created by the leading arts event maker, Artichoke, as a celebration of 100 years of votes for women.
Artichoke commissioned 100 female artists around the UK to create banners with women as an expression of gratitude to the women who worked to get the vote and to give voice to issues of importance to women now.
Tens of thousands of women took part in events that included workshops to make the banners and processions in 2018 in all the UK capitals.
This year there has also been an exhibition in London of all 100 banners.There was to have been a tour of all the100 banners around the country but due to Covid this is not happening. The Highland artists decided to create a mini event in the Pavilion’s veranda to showcase them.
They can be viewed from outside anytime and the doors will also be open each day from noon until 4pm for a closer look, with a Covid-aware one-way system, hand sanitizers and masks provided.
The Pavilion is an apt venue as it was important to women’s suffrage in the Highlands. Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst gave a stirring speech there in the days before women got the vote.
