Week #3 of 48 Weeks of Historical Craftivism, Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp

Welcome to Week 3 of 48 Weeks of Historical Craftivism! This week we have a lovely guest post by the lovely and amazing Sayraphim Lothian.

Craft Activism – the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp

Protesters ring the Greenham Common fence decorated with handmade banners and other items (date unknown)”
Protesters ring the Greenham Common fence decorated with handmade banners and other items (date unknown)”

On the 5th of September, 1981, the Welsh group Women for Life on Earth arrived at Greenham Common, an RAF Airbase in Berkshire, England. The group intended to challenge the decision to situate 96 Cruise nuclear missiles at the site, and presented the Base Commander with a letter requesting a debate on the topic. The letter stated, amongst other things, “We fear for the future of all our children and for the future of the living world which is the basis of all life”(1).

When their letter was ignored, they set up a Peace Camp just outside the fence. By 1982, the camp had become women only and with a strong feminist emphasis. In the following months and years thousands of women came to live and protest at the newly named Women’s Peace Camp(2), which now consisted of nine smaller camps at various gates around the base(3).

The women’s activism came in many forms, a considerable amount of it focused on the 9 mile fence that ringed the perimeter. In an interview with The New Statesman in 2007, the General Secretary for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Kate Hudson recalls “…block[ing] the gates, pull[ing] down parts of the fence, danc[ing] on the missile silos, and creatively express[ing] our opposition to the missiles.(4)”

In the camps between raids on the base, the women spent time making banners and weaving words, symbols and items such as toys and children’s clothing, into the fence(5). The banners were created both to hang on the fence and hold in protest marches that happened regularly around the perimeter. One of the most prolific banner makers was Thalia Campbell, who started making banners to address the stereotype of the Greenham Common women.

I did decide that I was an artist and I could have been one more body around the fire but I thought ‘no’, and we were so vilified… people did think we were dirty slags, lesbians, bad mothers and all this kind of stuff, like, like they vilified the suffragettes in the early days, but the vilification was so untrue I thought we had to counter it, so that’s why I started making my banners really, to sort of use beauty and humour to put our point across, because that vilification… So that’s why I made all the banners really and to tell the story… I used to go up and put them on the fence and gradually this became a great big display on the fence.(6)

image2

As well as banners protesting nuclear weapons, other banners (such as the one above) were created to show where the women were from, to show the media and the world that this was not a local issue.

The fence was also the focus of activism through weaving. Alongside toys and children’s clothes, which acted as signifiers of women’s ongoing everyday lived experience, in opposition to the destructive patriarchal threat within, and outside, the base(7), words, slogans and symbols such as peace signs, doves and rainbows were also often incorporated into the chain links.

image3

A protester remembers there was a lot of weaving things in the perimeter fence – rainbows, kid art, … the whole perimeter fence was very gorgeous. There were a lot of spiderwebs in the art. Spiderwebs were a big theme – I suppose the theme of weaving something, surrounding something(8). Another theory as to why the weaving of the webs was that “Before the world wide web connected people across the world, women at Greenham used the metaphor of a spiders web to imagine global connections between peace activists.(9)”

The webs often extended out to entangle the surrounding trees, the protesters themselves and the workmen and machinery that were sent in to remove them. A subcontractor who had driven his bulldozer in to remove a tree house stated in court “… the girls got in front of the machine. They stood there and a couple walked round [the bulldozer] with woollen string, going round and round with it…(10)” When the women were arrested and taken to court, some used the time to make webs there for installation later back at the camp(11).

The weaving was so important that mention of it made it’s way into protest songs, which were composed at the camp or modified from older songs and sung during protests, court hearings, while in prison or at home in the camp. We are the flow and we are the ebb and I am the weaver both appear in the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp Songbook, handwritten in 1983, photocopied in batches and sold to raise funds(12).

We are the flow
and we are the Ebb
We are the weavers
We are the web(13)

In 1981, at the very start of the Peace Camp, the women adopted the dragon as their symbol(14), explaining on a 1983 photocopied invitation that “The word ‘dragon’ derives from a word meaning ‘to see clearly’. She is a very old and powerful life symbol.” The invitation was to participate in The Full Moon in June Dragon Festival, where women were invited to feast and create a Rainbow Dragon together. Invitation 1 reads in part: At USAF Greenham Common, Newbury, Berkshire on the 25th June, a Rainbow Dragon will be born by joining the creative work of thousands of women… Women are making pieces of patchwork, banners, cloth paintings to join into the Rainbow Dragon for the future(15).

Three other invitations were also produced, the second of which invites women to “Dress up if you want – wear the colours of fire – make smaller dragons… believe in yourselves and know that our positive, creative energy will change the world.(16)” The visitors to Greenham that day bought patches and material from home and from women who couldn’t make it to the camp. Over the course of the day they helped sew together a 9 mile Rainbow Dragon, which then encircled the fence.

The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983
The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983

The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983
The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983
The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983
The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983

The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983
The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983

An article in an undated Greenham Common newsletter talks about the Rainbow Serpent from Aboriginal mythology and emphasises it as a:

‘universally-respected divinity’, a guardian of humanity, and a metaphor for menstrual cycles, and as such an important symbol for Greenham Common Peace Camp women … The Rainbow Serpent also represented ‘the dragon [that was] slaughtered by some patriarchal hero who established the present world order from which we are still suffering’. However, as a phoenix from the ashes, the dragon… is stirring from her sleep allowing, ‘the Australian Aboriginals and the American Indians, together with traditional people and women everywhere [to have] the last word(17)’

The dragon was clearly a powerful symbol for the women to create together and surround the base with and it’s nine mile length showed the world that many voices were joined as one to protest the nuclear weapons being held behind the fence.

Living conditions were primitive at Greenham Common. Living outside in all kinds of weather especially in the winter and rainy seasons was testing. Without electricity, telephone, running water etc, frequent evictions and vigilante attacks, life was difficult. In spite of the conditions women, from many parts of the UK and abroad, came to spend time at the camp to be part of the resistance to nuclear weapons(18). But the women made their protest heard, all around the world, with interventions, songs, marches, banners, costumes and craft based installations.

Ultimately, in 1991, the nuclear weapons were removed after US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which meant that the cruise missiles were taken back to America(19). The camp and the women remained for another nine years, as part of a protest against the UK Trident program, which is the ongoing operation of the current generation of British nuclear weapons(20) before leaving for the last time in 2000.

A Thalia Campbell banner on the Greenham fence (date unknown)
A Thalia Campbell banner on the Greenham fence (date unknown)

(1) Hipperson, Sarah (n.d.) Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp 1981 – 2000 [Accessed 13 September 2013]
(2)Hudson, Kate, 2013 ‘Remembering Greenham Common’ The New Statesman [Accessed 13 September 2013]
(3)‘Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (n.d.) Wikipedia [Accessed 15 September 2013]
(4)Hudson, Kate, 2013 ‘Remembering Greenham Common’ The New Statesman
(5)Eiseman-Renyard, Hannah, 2011 ‘Revolting Women: Greenham Common’ Bad Reputation: A Feminist Pop Culture Adventure [Accessed 17 September 2013]
(6)The Peace Museum, 2009 Thalia Campbell – Greenham Common protester and banner maker [Accessed 12 September 2013]
(7)Welch, Christina (n.d.) ‘Spirituality and Social Change at Greenham Common Peace Camp’ Journal for Faith, Spirituality and Social Change. Vol.1:1 [Accessed 08 September 2013]
(8)Eiseman-Renyard, Hannah, 2011 ‘Revolting Women: Greenham Common’ Bad Reputation: A Feminist Pop Culture Adventure
(9)Feminist Archive South, 2013 Greenham Materials
[Accessed 12 September 2013]
(10)Harford, Barbara and Hopkins, Sarah (eds)1984 Greenham Common: Women at the Wire London: The Women’s Press p48
(11)Ibid p47
(12)Greenham Women are Everywhere songs (n.d) [Accessed 13 September 2013] p 1
(13)The Danish Peace Academy, 2009 Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp Songbook [Accessed 12 September 2013]
(14)The National Archives (n.d.) Records of Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (Yellow Gate) : Press cuttings 5GCW/E/1 Nov 1981 – Oct 1983 [Accessed 16 September 2013]
(15)The Danish Peace Academy, 2009 Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp Songbook : A Day in December 82 [Accessed 12 September 2013]
(16)The Danish Peace Academy, 2009 Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp Songbook : A Day in December 82..
(17)Welch, Christina (n.d.) ‘Spirituality and Social Change at Greenham Common Peace Camp’ Journal for Faith, Spirituality and Social Change
(18)Hipperson, Sarah (n.d.) Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp 1981 – 2000


    More resources:

Combomphotos, 1983 Aldermaston-Greenham Common peace chain 01-04-1983 04 [Accessed 19 September 2013]

For anyone over 30, the words “Greenham Common” mean two things: cruise missiles and the women’s peace camps of the mid-Eighties (n.d.) [Accessed 19 September 2013]

Levit, Briar (n.d.) Greenham [Accessed 19 September 2013]

The Felt Impact of the Tar Sands

The Felt Impacts of the Tar Sands – #feltimpacts #tarsands #craftivism from You and I Films on Vimeo.

From the press release:
Tuesday, November 19th, 2013 – Street felt-artist Lucy Sparrow unrolled an ambitious artwork at the annual Canada Europe Energy Summit outside Canada House in Trafalgar Square, as Canadian minister Joe Oliver met with the UK government, the CEO of BP, Bob Dudley and other major players in the tar sands industry to discuss undermining EU climate legislation, the Fuel Quality Directive, to open up global markets to Canada’s highly-polluting fossil fuels.

“It is horrific to see how ecosystems, communities and many species of animals are being destroyed in a last push to extract Canadian tar sands,” said Sparrow. “I wanted to make sure that as decision-makers met today to undermine climate legislation in the EU, to push forward with this brutal form of extracting energy, that they could not escape the image of the horror and devastation that their reckless decisions are causing.”

The giant felt work blocked three entrances of Canada House as ministers and industry representatives from Shell, Enbridge and others arrived. It depicted in graphic detail the devastating impacts that the Canadian tar sands extraction is having on ecosystems in Canada that communities rely on. “As the communities downstream from the Alberta tar sands we are seeing the felt impacts of the tar sands daily. We are seeing elevated levels of cancer and auto-immune diseases in our communities and our water is no longer safe to drink,” said Jesse Cardinal from the Keepers of the Athabasca. “With more and more of these ecosystems being decimated and water systems being polluted, animals and fish that the community rely on are presenting with tumours and being pushed to extinction. Our future as a people is hanging in the balance.”

Canadian security walks through oil spill - photo by Bradley L Garratt

Dead caribou made by felt artist Lucy Sparrow - photo by Scott Cadman

For more information about this and the tar sands, please visit the UK Tar Sands Network.

Learning about this project has really got me thinking about craftivism and non-confrontational engagement, like in the video and photos above. How can we engage without encouraging anger, instead bringing forth dialogue?

600 Musicians Pay Musical Tribute to Delhi Rape Victim

I discovered this via a tweet by Yoko Ono and think it is just beautiful.

Musical-tribute-1

A group of 600 guitarists have paid a musical tribute to the Delhi gangrape victim, playing “Imagine” by John Lennon in a bid to spread “hope, peace and promise” in a country still coming to terms with the violence.

The group assembled at a music festival in the eastern hilltown of Darjeeling on Thursday, nearly three weeks after the brutal rape and murder of a student on a moving bus in New Delhi brought an outpouring of national anger.

“We chose this song because it talks about hope, peace and promise,” said Sonam Bhutia, tourism secretary of Darjeeling and one of the festival organisers.

“The song is so inspiring. It talks about a universe without any boundaries,” Bhutia said of the 1971 Lennon track.

“The tribute was a gesture on our part to show that we are with the victim’s family in their hour of unimaginable sorrow.”

The savage attack on the woman has triggered countrywide protests with calls for better safety and an overhaul of laws governing crimes against women.

Public vs. Private Acts of Craftivism: Which Do You Prefer?

Continuing on from my post the other day about solo craftivist acts, 2 things have come to my attention lately that are 2 very different solo acts of craftivism. Public vs. private. I’m not making any judgements to which is “better” or “worse,” these are just two very different stories that have come up on my radar lately that fit under the umbrella of craftivism.

1. Tramway to Hell

This bit of crochet was put in the other day in Edinburgh to speak out against a local tram project.

Market researcher Mary Gordon, 44, snapped some pictures of the knitted notice.

“I was making my way home when it caught my eye. It was on tram barriers near the H&M close to Waverley Station. Quite a few people were gathered in front of it, having a look and taking pictures.

“I’m certainly familiar with the concept of yarn-bombing, and I know it’s been getting more popular here, but I’ve only ever heard of people, say, covering up benches or handrails to add a bit of colour to the environment, not making a political statement. It’s a bit like graffiti, but without the paint.”

Mary, who is herself a keen knitter and crocheter but insists she wasn’t responsible, said that the blanket was of a “high-standard”.

“I would guess that it must have taken at least a week, maybe two, so a lot of work went into it.

“Princes Street looks grim beyond belief right now and it was nice to see something colourful that was also making people think.”

2. Tina Selby’s 10,000 Hats for Soldiers in Afghanistan

Tiny Selby just finished her 10,000th hat for soldiers in Afghanistan. A very different act of craftivism.

A woman who turned her love of knitting to helping British soldiers fight off the cold in Afghanistan has topped a remarkable milestone.

Tina Selby, 50, from Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, has now knitted more than 10,000 woolly hats.

In 2009, Mrs Selby planned to knit just 500 for regiments in Helmand province.

But, following the response she received from the troops, Mrs Selby will carry on knitting until the soldiers leave Afghanistan.

“It’s a full-time job,” said Mrs Selby, who is retired.

Tina Selby says she had about 100 knitters helping her send woolly hats to soldiers in Afghanistan,”but I’ll keep going until they come home in 2014.”

But, both speak to the heart of craftivism: using your creativity for positive change. (Okay, “tramway to hell” may not be the most positive, but it’s opening dialogue, which is it’s own type of change.) What I find fascinating is the dialogue that springs up around each of them. Public and private. One is just as good as the other, but does one make the maker feel better? The viewer? Yourself?

Do they elicit different internal dialogues? Does one seem more “legit” than the other? Does one deserve more recognition than the other?

This is what I’m working with at present, wondering, why do we do the craftivist acts that we do? What is our individual goal in doing them? Which do people prefer? No answers yet, just thoughts. Would love to hear yours!