Studio Orta

A selection of the award-winning* Procession Banners Lucy Orta created together with female residents from HMP Downview will be displayed for the first time at the Ikon Gallery’s offsite Medicine Bakery and Gallery from 23 October 2018 to 20 January 2019.

In January 2018, Lucy Orta began collaborating with a group of female residents as part of London College of Fashion’s Making For Change fashion training and manufacturing unit, based at HMP Downview. Commissioned by Historic England, the women, assisted by students from LCF, designed 30 banners to mark 100 years since British women won the vote. In 2016, women were transferred to HMP Downview after the closure of HMP Holloway, then the largest all women prison in Europe, and the notorious site where over 1,000 suffragettes had been imprisoned during their struggle for the vote. Through workshops Lucy Orta collected testimonies considering what it means to be a woman today, the power of the vote and our shared future. The banners they created were paraded in the centenary Processions march in cities across the UK on 10 June 2018. 

During November 2018, Lucy Orta is artist-in-residence for Ikon’s 2018 Looping the Loop programme. During her residency, Lucy Orta and MotherShip Projects join together with local communities to create a processional banner based on personal experiences. On Saturday 17 November, to mark the centenary of women’s suffrage, Lucy Orta, MotherShip and students from Birmingham City University lead a procession through the streets of Birmingham headed by the finished banner.  

*Participants each received a Gold Koestler Award August 2018.