Feminist Archive South

Film and postcard designs for the Feminist Archives South 40th Anniversary Exhibition in Bristol

film & postcard designs//outcomes now in Feminist Archive South →

Film and postcard designs inspired by Helen Taylor and the women of ‘Half the Sky’ for the Feminist Archives South 40th Anniversary Exhibition in Bristol. Responding to a selection of archive material, from the Feminist Archive South we were asked to make a Herstory visible by creating a site-specific piece of design in Bristol. Our aim as a group was to create an outcome that generates more conversations about feminism.

Collaborative project with Nathan Day, Tom Astbury and Charlotte Hooper.

We met with feminist Helen Taylor and had our own discussion about women studies, like the nine women authors of the book, ‘Half the Sky’ would have had. We spoke about whether the topics and issues discussed in the book were still relevant today and whether we have progressed enough.

Helen Taylor was part of nine women, who wrote the book ‘Half the Sky’ an introduction on women’s studies in 1979. Half the sky discusses what it means to be a woman, women’s position in society as one of disadvantage or inequality compared to men and the desire to remove these disadvantages. The book was written as there was a demand from women for information for women’s studies courses in education. There was also the desire to pass this knowledge on. When writing ‘Half the Sky’ the nine feminists would meet up at each others houses, including Helen’s, to have discussions and decided what they wanted to include within the book. 

We recorded our interview with Helen and created a film ‘Out On The Table’ with visuals inspired by the idea of the meetings, where the women all had to bring an item of food and had a feast during their discussions. While looking at the archive material we found letters to Helen from other authors of ‘Half the sky’ in which they would enclose which items of food they would each bring to the meeting. These letters and our conversation with Helen inspired us to create the visual of using food as a centre piece for these important discussions.