Tameside

In Tameside, Tandem Theatre partnered with Tameside Youth Services ran by Tameside Borough Council. Tameside Youth Services offer an array of activities across the borough for young people aged 8 – 19 years old, a combination of drop in sessions and targeted youth support.

The Game Changers project complimented their young women’s provision. None of the young people had visited any of the Manchester based museums before and the group grew in confidence and self-worth as the project developed. The youth workers enjoyed the levels of engagement from the young people and how the project was able to provide such a variety of workshops.

“It was a good experience to work in new areas and involve other artists.” Diane King, Tameside Youth Worker.

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

The group received guided tours of Archives + at Manchester Central Library where they handled the women’s suffrage collection and The People’s History Museum to see the wider context of women’s suffrage. The group also received a guided tour of the Portland Basin Museum to learn about the local historical context of their borough.

RECREATING THE PAST

In the arts and crafts workshops the group recreated suffragist materials such as a protest banner, rosettes, sashes, leaflets, booklets and badges. For more information on how suffragists used these materials click here.

The group researched Tameside suffragist Bertha Mason, and how she was able to use the power of the committees she was involved in, to advocate for women’s suffrage. The Game Changers then decorated a giant jigsaw piece in the shape of their borough, Tameside, with an image of Mason and newspaper clippings about the suffrage movement.

For more information about Bertha Mason click here.

The group recreated the 1908 Manchester Women’s Suffrage Demonstration 1908 by marching down Lark Hill Place (a replica Victorian street at Salford Museum and Art Gallery) in costume wearing their sashes and displaying their banner.

For International Women’s Day the group displayed all their fantastic work at Tameside Portland Basin Museum and their lead artist ran suffragist themed making activities throughout the day.

APPLYING THE PAST TO TODAY

The group then applied what they had learnt about the suffragist campaign methods and applied it to today. Focusing on current issues the group felt most impacted them; they developed their own campaign through taking part in a series of workshops such as debating, marketing, music, spoken word, corporate sponsorship and T-shirt printing.

For more information about these methods of campaigning click here.

These set of sessions also provided content for the groups to share at the recreation of the 1912 Women’s Suffrage Bazaar. One of the group members even performed their music live!

ASSOCIATE LEAD ARTIST - Anna Horton Cremin

Anna Horton Cremin (b.1991) recent achievements include Time and Space Residency Metal, commissions include; Games Generator (Forest of Imagination, Bath, Make My Day, Morecambe Bay and Love Parks Week and Festival of Manchester, 2019); Third Room Residency, Left Coast (Blackpool, 2019); Good Game, (Ampersand Projects, Birmingham 2018); She has been selected for Social Art Summit (Sheffield 2018); Artist Jamboree (Devon, 2018) and Creative 50 (Manchester International Festival 2017). She is resident at Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol.