LISTEN WITH HEADPHONES

Stereo sound recording 5 minutes, 2020. Thanks to Sarah Carne, Ivy Johnson, Mary Moss, Ellie Sherwood and Ruby Sherwood-Martin for their voices and Eddie Sherwood for rhythm.

Low pay, long hours, appalling conditions and industrial hazards led, after many years of campaigning, to the 1888 match girls’ strike which saw the beginning of a gradual improvement in working conditions. Strike meetings were held at Hanbury Hall.

The London night cleaners’ strike in 1972 – following a long campaign for unionisation - saw some improvement in pay and working conditions for one of the most exploited workforces: low paid, precarious, isolated and without rights.

Modern slavery is all around us, but often just out of sight. Thousands of women become entrapped: making clothes, serving food, picking crops, working in factories, or as domestic cooks, cleaners, nannies.

Aflame was site specific work developed for Sweet ‘Art’s Art Trail in October 2020, and was located at Hanbury Hall where meetings of the match girls’ strike took place.