Suffragette Installation (Live Brief)
Practice for Design for Performance was the second module in my first year studying at university. This was a running theme on the course where the first years are given a catalyst which they would have to design and build an exhibit completely out of brown paper. In 2018 it was the 100th anniversary of the suffragette movement, so we used key figures and scenes which were made iconic. From chaining themselves to fences and throwing rocks through windows, this scene depicts the extremes women went to back in 1918.
Among the iconic characters on show are Christabel Pankhurst - daughter of perhaps the movement’s most famous name Emmeline Pankhurst - Flora Drummond who was nicknamed ‘the General’, who is seen riding the carriage which is been drawn by the horse. Another character is Ethel Smyth who was famed for conducting protests from her window using a toothbrush.
Along with a few other students it was my job to build the horse so I began researching into the horses which would have been used to tow carriages back in the early 1900s. I built the wooden foundation and we began to use rolled paper to give a sturdy frame and begin to add layers. Once the horse was built we were given the job to build the carriage which was being drawn by the horse.