Breaking Barriers

Community Outreach

Partners:

• Colchester and Ipswich Museums
• Essex Libraries
• Parliamentary Outreach
• Abbots Activity Centre
• Co-Op Ladies Group, Colchester

Artists:

• Alison Stockmarr
• Ian Etheridge

Project Description:

Led by Parliamentary Outreach, this Essex-wide project pulled together the stories of local suffragists and suffragettes. The resulting exhibition toured the county and was displayed at Colchester Library between June and September 2010.

As well as being part of the overall project steering group, Colchester and Ipswich Museums worked hard to support the display during its time in Colchester. The Outreach team, along with artists Alison Stockmarr and Ian Etheridge, worked with members of the Abbots Road Activity Centre and the Co-Op Ladies Group across a series of workshops to create a unique Suffrage handling box. This box was on the gallery throughout the exhibition and is now available for loan to secondary schools. For more information about the loans box please click here. Contents include replica sashes, badges and a banner, Suffrage games and a replica of a child’s corset, based on one from the Colchester Museum collection.

The museum also supplemented the text-only touring exhibition with local objects from the collections and held a family event day to open the display and two talks during the exhibition’s run.

For more information about the project and Parliamentary Outreach, please click here

Project Aims:

To provide heritage related activities for a variety of audiences to enable them to actively engage with local museum collections
To raise awareness and understanding of the Suffrage movement in Colchester
To contribute to positive attitudes to ageing
To provide artist-led opportunities for older people to enjoy sharing and using a range of needlecraft skills
To use heritage and museum collections to inspire and create new opportunities for intergenerational contact and learning
To raise awareness of and widen access to the Museums collections
To foster partnerships between Colchester and Ipswich Museums and the project partners
To widen community engagement in furtherance of Colchester and Ipswich Museums role as a partner in the East of England Regional Museum Hub