Pageant on Paper is a drawing, made by over 100 contributing hands, in pencil and ink, on a single piece of paper measuring 9.5 m x 1.5m. The drawing offers a way to discover great women past and present through the 331 portraits processing across the paper. The work was inspired by a little known, inspirational theatre maker and suffragette, Edith Craig and her staging of the suffrage play A Pageant of Great Women by Cicely Hamilton.
The drawing began during a residency at the 2018 RADA Festival as an event to celebrate Vote 100 and continued to grow through workshops and development in the years since. The artwork was more than just a live drawing event by our two lead artists, Laura Cordery and Eleanor Field and more than just the individual drawings by visitors and workshop participants: the artwork became about the conversations around great women, some lost in history, some only known personally: it became a story sharing experience and platform to facilitate discussion about female role-models.
The artwork now lives on as an online interactive artwork here on this website for you to journey through and explore. The artwork has moved on from the original form of ink and paper to that of an interactive map, with poetic captions by contemporary writers woven in, a beautiful soundscape, specially composed for this piece, with audio account that bring participants voices to the forefront of the work