This is the final honours project for my degree; I thought I would go into more detail on the concept and show you some more photos.
Using my love of paper and my interest in history, I wanted to create an outcome that combined inspiration from paper engineers like Benja Harney, and my fascination with WW2.
My grandmother was in the army during the Second World War, and I used this as my starting point, trying to create work that would highlight the huge contribution made by ordinary women. My research lead me to the Mass Observation Project, which asked ordinary people to answer questionnaires and write a diary about their day to day lives, in order to determine how the public felt about the war. I chose seven different women, one for each year of the war, and created objects containing a quote from their diary relating to a significant events, changes in their lives or just simply to convey their feelings towards the war.
Eileen Potter, 1939 The suitcase represents a single woman working as an Evacuation Officer in London. I wanted it to show the panic that people felt at the time, and the fear and dread conveyed in her writing, but also to highlight how brave and selfless it was for her to stay and help evacuate the children.
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| Eileen Potter, 1939 |
Mrs Crawford, 1940 The mobile canteen van tells the story of a woman who finds herself having to drive one of these vans around London during the Blitz. I wanted to show how courageous she must have been to do this; not only to drive, as a woman in 1940, but around London in a huge, heavy van with the risk of a bomb dropping at any moment.
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| Mrs Crawford, 1940 |
Muriel Green, 1941 The shoe represents a young girl who joined the Women’s Land Army. Her diary is full of excitement and enthusiasm for her new found freedom and independence, so creating a red dancing shoe for her was a much more personal way of telling her story.
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| Muriel Green, 1941 |
Maggie Joy Blunt, 1942
The bullet is to show Maggie’s feelings towards the munitions factory she works in. Although quite a masculine environment, she clearly finds her surroundings beautiful, as she describes them in a very poetic way. I wanted to created an object that was something ordinarily associated with men, but that could be made to look quite pretty.
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| Maggie Joy Blunt 1942 |
Joan Arkwright, 1943
The plane is to represent the ambition that many women had that was stifled simply because they were women. Joan joined the WAAF to for more excitement, but although she found herself doing quite menial tasks, she stayed and contributed to the war, showing great sacrifice and selflessness.
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| Joan Arkwright, 1943 |
Nora J, 1944 The scales are to convey the feelings of a young midwife who strongly opposes more children being born into war. She is very firm in her opinions but clearly puts them aside to ensure her job is done to the best of her ability.
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| Nora J, 1944 |
Nella Last, 1945 The apron represents the end of the war, and in a lot of ways, the end of women’s new role in society. With men returning from war, a lot of women found themselves returning to being a housewife and mother.
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| Nella Last, 1945 |
My collection of objects helps to summarise women’s contribution and to convey how brave, strong and capable they were, and how enormously their lives changed.
Hope you like!
Gem x
