Wonder Women festival launched – from suffragettes to women’s football

Debbie Manley | 2nd March 2018

A unique collaboration between feminist queer collective Moist; sound artists Lauren Palmer and Amy Horgan and transgender performer Grace Oni Smith launched the Wonder Women Festival 1-31 March 2018.

The feminist takeover, in the atrium of Manchester Art Gallery, was  inspired by the radical Manchester-born artist and feminist campaigner, Annie Swynnerton (1844–1933).

In celebration of the current Annie Swynnerton exhibition, Instigate Arts invited some of Manchester and Salford’s feminist queer creatives to present themselves on their own terms – see video above.

Anne Louise Kershaw, of Instigate Arts, said: “Women have equal vote but we are still a long, long way off having equal shares in culture, in society, in the world. Even in terms of our own history and narrative because it is so often told for us or painted for us.”

Helen Antrobus, programme and events officer at People’s History Museum, said: “The Wonder Women Festival was conceived to lead up to this centenary year. That’s the reason why we started it and why we’ve had it for the last five years. It has had a massive impact on celebrating hidden women in Manchester.

“The programme this year is incredible in getting those voices out. Even though we are going to see a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst this year and we have been talking so much about suffragettes, who championed the women of Manchester, what the Wonder Women Festival does so fell is show thousands and thousands of other women across Manchester who are radical as well.”

As well as the People’s History Museum, venues include the Contact Theatre, the Working Class Movement Library, the Museum of Science and Industry, Castlefield Gallery, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, The Whitworth art gallery and Manchester Museum.

Events during the Wonder Women Festival include Upfront and Onside: The Women’s Football Conference on 8-9 March; and Unlocking the Hidden History of Women’s Football at the National Football Museum on Monday 19 March, click on video below for more details.

 

Exhibitions include Lost Voices at Quarry Bank, Styal Rd, Styal, Wilmslow SK9 4LA, is suitable for all ages and is free admission – until Sunday 7 October 2018 10.30am-4.30pm.

For more details on Wonder Women Festival 1-31 March visit: creativetourist.com/event/wonder-women