Please vote for my project! Play your part with People's History Museum

Out of over 90 applications I’ve managed to reach the final 12 artists to a competition with the People’s History Museum for a week’s residency! I’m pretty excited but they will only select three based on a public vote. So please follow that link and vote for me. It’s open in the museum itself and you can vote online until 5pm 11 June. 

The People’s History museum project would enable me to execute workshops for people to contribute to the foundations of a bigger project.  I am currently in the process of developing a community quilt project which aims to celebrate the 396 MPs who voted ‘Yes’ for equal marriage in 2013. 396 portraits hand drawn will be individually printed on hexagonal fabric and sewn together to form a quilt.  

The remaining 254 MPs that did not say yes will be represented by hexagonal fabric with messages of hope that have been made by the public.

 During the week residency I will host drop in workshops, getting audiences to create a range of positive messages to the MPs which did not vote for equal marriage.   Participation aims to inspire more political engagement with current affairs. The project will draw out key examples from the People’s History Museum’s banner collection (which include banners from suffragettes and section 28 campaigns).   The project highlights that although LGBT people have gained rights, there is still work to be done to gain real equality.  The messages that I create will then be used to be appliqued onto the hexagons where an MP did not vote for Equal Marriage.

The diagram illustrates how this would appear, the black hexagons are those that voted against, the grey is those who abstained and the coloured hexagons represent the MPs who voted yes (and their political party).  You can see how MPs voted and who they represent from this interactive map from The Guardian which I based this data. I used an image from the Telegraph which is a political map of the 2010 election and modified the colours to reflect the votes made for equal marriage in 2013. From the Guardian article by Simon Rogers you can see the geographical locations of the MPs and how they voted.  

The quilt itself will be created later in the year and will act as an educational tool to inform young people of the role of MPs and the how to become an activist for equal rights. I hope to then tour the piece to raise awareness and hope to other places. I’m aiming to have the quilt itself ready for the next LGBT history month (February 2015).

So Please help me out simply by voting for my project here:

 http://www.phm.org.uk/about-us/play-your-part/microresidencies-project-vote-for-your-favourite/