What about the women? Watch the winds of change.

My art practice is primarily concerned with site specific performance and often overlays historically prolific women. My latest project took form on Whitsun Sunday in May 2010 in Clovelly, North devon. Both place and date were relevant to a story we uncovered at the Devon Records Office as part of the Politics in Print commission with the Double Elephant Print workshop.

We arrived at Clovelly at 8am, the timing was perfect because the light was bright and reflection from the water suface was strong. The sun was high, and unusually hot, the beach was dotted with local workers and residents who quickly became interested in our presence on the beach. The nature of our activity, although queitly stated and undistruptive, seemed to take them by surprise. They were keen to discover what our action was about. Some of the residents present were aware of the story of the 3 Suffragettes and were reminded of the resonance of the story at Clovelly by our activity, and some were learning of it for the first time.

We walked the coastline, the terrain wasn't easy due to the rocky surface of the beach. We spent 3 hours walking the length of the beach to pay homage to the journey of the 3 historic women. Whilst bringing our contemporary vision to performance by flying flags of Suffragette colours. We were working the slogan 'What about the women? Watch the winds of change.' For me the action was about spell casting or enchantment to promote the voice of women for positive future social change. By the end of the 3 hours we were physically quite tired and in need of an ice cream.

The performance's aim was to highlight two parts of the story. The other section took place in the curch on the Clovelly Estate. we walked through the church yard in our dresses and used the flags from the beach performance as scarfs to cover our heads. We entered the church and took our seats, as to overlay the presence of the 3 militant women.

The story goes that on the 23rd May, Whitsun sunday, 1909, 3 suffragette women who were active in disruptive protest to ensure votes for women, secretly became aware of Asquith's private plans to be at Clovelly court that weekend. They knew he would attend the sunday service at the Church and their intentions were to 'get on the nerves' of the Prime Minister, who was bundled out of the side door of the Church as to contain his discontent. The women were advised to leave Clovelly and were escorted to Bideford. After staying only a few hours in Bieford, the 3 women walked 10 miles back to Clovelly via the coastline. They planted a display of banners in the garden of Asquith's retreat over night with the intention that he would wake up to open his curtain to reveal the votes for women campaign on his lawn.

The performance truly felt like a pilgrimage and evoked a manifestation in time and space of their lives. This work is in context to the work that we have been producing through the IWA program which has highlighted suffrage whilst working with the symbolism of their colours.

This work was performed by Nicci Wonnacott, Sally Trivett and Catherine Cartwright. This blog was written by Nicci Wonnacott. You can find Catherine Cartwright's account of the project here; //http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/544293