We celebrated International Women’s Day at YMa with a “Hop-tŷ”, an experimental pop-up that gave us an opportunity to talk about this year’s IWD hashtag, #InspireInclusion and collected ideas for Artis Community to develop further in the building/community.
One of the ideas that came up from several members of the group was Life Drawing classes, and the other mutual suggestion was a Menopause Support Group.
“We just haven’t been talking about Menopause properly, and that is a problem. Women are suffering, at home and in work. Menopause can be so silencing & isolating & it really doesn’t have to be”
(Participant feedback)
Part of the Hop-tŷ was a library of literature from women all around the world, books of poetry, research and prose. The event coincided with World Book Day, something we seem to focus on more for children and I wanted to create a space that allowed mothers & women to see themselves in literature, to give permission to invest time in themselves & learning, to have access to diverse books that represented our stories.
“Give me an educated mother, I shall promise you the birth of a civilised, educated nation”
Napoleon
The event was also very close to Mothers Day. This can be difficult for many, for reasons around loss or fragile relationships. This space provided an opportunity to hold space for those conversations, to talk it all through without judgement, to celebrate self and be enough, just as you are.
“If you educate a man you educate an individual.
But if you educate a woman, you educate a nation”
African Proverb
Mothers day, in theory, is nice. But if only we valued the role of mothers in society more would we see real sincere changes. Women’s free labour as mothers, wives, carers & volunteers is worth in Britain alone £140 billion!
“This is a generation of mothers that are burning out, losing out, breaking down trying to simply exist. As a family. With a career. It’s not about ‘having it all’, it’s just that we are doing it all. And it’s too much”
Mother Pukka
We are doing twice as much for half of the opportunity and equity, persecuted for our gender, so if we are celebrating anything this mothers day it is the hashtag – #InspireInclusion and an invitation to take up space… in boardrooms, in books, in buildings, in making decisions, in better opportunities, in galleries, in science, in sports, in the arts…
And women are at risk. At the time of writing this I am living in fear. Any time I make myself visible online for celebrating my achievements or my art goes live I have to deal with perpetrators. I regularly have to contact Live Fear Free (here’s the number if you need it – 0808 80 10 800) and have to log things with the police. I am not an isolated incident. Gender based violence is real.
“Globally, an estimated 736 million women—almost one in three—have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life (30 per cent of women aged 15 and older). This figure does not include sexual harassment.”
www.unwomen.org
So I look for the women!
That’s how I’ve survived.
They are waiting for you!
At YMa we run Crafty Cuppa lead by Rhian Anderson every Monday morning & the women there have held me tight! There isn’t a thing that Trudy can’t fix, be it my problems or my clothes, & she has helped me pull off impossible projects & our #DenimDwbl hotpants collection we created exploring gender based violence & epistemic injustice are currently in their third professional exhibition, currently at Gallery 57, Newport, until the 28th March.
And finally, check out our poem, (we turned this around in 4 days) Look for the Women, written by Dee Dickens, our Pontypridd Poet, or Swynwraig Graig, and she intended it for everyone! Created by a group of women, from our Artis Community, from our Sisters in Wrexham, from all over these lands, coming together for #IWD24 to #InspireInclusion and these beautiful films, in English, Welsh & BSL call for you to “scream from the rooftops” how amazing women are, every single day!
Here’s a link to all 3 films:
Massive Diolch to Cafe Cwtch for hosting the event!
Photos – Gerhard Kress
