Home

Friends & Family

Big thanks to all our friends and supporters!

If you would like to support The W Project please contact

info@thewproject.co.uk

Welcome

The W Project celebrates women working across the creative industries. We aim to promote empowering
role-models and help build a better creative community for the future.

The Exhibition

For those of you that didn’t make it down to the exhibition, here are a few photos. Enjoy!

Closing party hosted by The Sit Down Affair

Thanks to all of you who joined us to celebrate the show and all our participants at our closing party.

Hosted by The Sit Down Affair, we got to share a rare treat of delicious food and inspiring talks and screenings from Caryn Franklin and Debra Bourne from All Walks Beyond The Catwalk, and Fred Butler, Elisha Smith-Leverock and Kim Howells.

The perfect ending to a great show, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Big love, Teo & Loren xx

Thanks for supporting our launch!

Big thanks and love to everyone who came down to our launch and made it as massive as we could have wanted. A fantastic night, and we think it’s safe to say the busiest, booziest (thanks to Absolut) and best-looking ticket in town.

The Say Fromage photo booth was rammo!

Check out more images from the photo booth Here!

The work was amazing, and Creative Review, Dazed and Grazia had some nice things to say about it all.

And a bloody good time was had by all!

Thanks again to everyone who was involved, everyone who helped, and everyone who came down. Can’t wait to do it all again next year!

Big love, Teo & Loren xx

A few words from Lauren Cochrane

Life 100 years ago was almost unthinkable for creative women in 1911 – if it was the year that Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize, women still couldn’t vote in most countries, let alone think about a career in the arts. Still, International Women’s Day was observed for the first time. One of the milestones of women’s liberation – thanks to founder German-born Clara Zetkin, friend of Rosa Luxembourg, wife of an artist and all-round inspirational figure – it is now a date in the diary every year and even celebrated as a Mother’s Day-style holiday across Eastern Europe.

While there’s obviously still a long way to go in terms of wages, housework and, indeed, attitudes to football officials, women are now flourishing in the creative industries. Nearly half of the 2010 Hospital Club 100 List of creative talent were women – more than ever before. This creative growth is what the W Project is interested in – and hopes to encourage more of. Founded by Teo Connor and Loren Platt, it is all about making space for creative women to achieve and, hopefully, inspire others to join their industry.

Their first project launches, appropriately, on International Women’s Day and is based around an exhibition at Dalston’s Russian Club Gallery. The duo have invited established and new talent in the creative industries to make something based on the sentence “A woman’s work is…” Challenging stereotypes, the results will no doubt provide varied insight into artistic female minds in the twentyfirst century – and perhaps inspire a new generation to find their role model and make their own voice heard too.

Because, although women’s lives and position in society has improved radically since 100 years ago, inspirational achievers like Zetkin and Curie are perhaps in shorter supply – particularly in a world where 32% of teenagers find Paris Hilton inspiring (as a survey found in 2008). With a mission statement to “promote empowering role models, and provide a platform 
to connect and inspire women”, the 
W Project can help with that too. They want to re-evaluate what makes a role model (merit rather than column inches, perhaps), show you some inspiring women and persuade you to perhaps look a little closer to home too. Gossip mag celebrities might be swapped for someone you share an office with, a photographer who uncovered a new world or a painter who helps you see things a different way. There’s no doubt Zetkin – and others like her – would approve.

Big thanks to Lauren for writing such a fantastic introduction for our exhibition guide.

Lauren Cochrane is a freelance fashion, style and culture writer contributing to Vogue, i-D, The Guardian and The Financial Times. She is based in East London.

After our launch we have some great things happening throughout The W Project. Pop down and see the show and join us for one or all of the fabulous programmed events that follow…

Wednesday 9 March, from 1.00pm

Meet artist Josephine Ada Chinonye Chime, and interact with her live photographic installation, featuring her larger than life illustrated sculptures playing with ideas of feminine beauty.

Join in with the Bricolage Workshop. Share your voice through ancient Chinese textiles method, creating a huge W project style shield banner bursting with opinions….Collective power reigns supreme!

Workshop starts at 2.00pm.

Thursday 10 March, 6.45pm

The Firm Cinema presents two award winning films following with an equally provocative Q&A hosted by The Edge Picture Company.

Stanley Pickle (2010)

short animated film directed by Victoria Mather

Winner of the McLaren Award for New British Animation at Edinburgh Festival 2010

Stanley never goes outside. He likes to play with his clockwork toys and every night his mother kisses him goodnight. Stanley is twenty. The trouble is that Stanley thinks this is all quite normal, until an encounter with a mysterious girl turns his world upside down…

Using original animation techniques, actors are animated. Stanley Pickle was shot frame by frame on two sets and two locations, using a stills camera.

Sisters In Law (2005) a film by Kim Longinotto

Winner of the Prix Art et Essai at the Cannes Film Festival

Set in Kumba, Longinotto and her hand held camera travel to a small village in Cameroon. Sisters In Law  explores the stories of mistreated women who turn to Vera Ngassa a local state prosecutor that runs her office with wit, warmth and common sense. Between the hardship there is optimism, especially when they see the strength and power gained for standing up for their rights.

+ Q&A – Why are there so few female film-makers?

Panel hosted by The Edge Picture Company, featuring Producer/Director Norma Gaunt, Director Liz Mermin, Director of Stanley Pickle Victoria Mather, Film Maker Grace Ladoja, and Producer Hazel Falck.

Friday 11 March, 7.00pm

Join us to celebrate the show and all our participants with our closing party from 7pm. Hosted by The Sit Down Affair, we invite you to bring your drinks to share a rare treat of delicious food and inspiring talks and screenings by leading industry role-models, making their mark.

Fred Butler, Elisha Smith-Leverock & Kim Howells screen their latest film collaboration Incandescent Meta-morph-incessant, first shown at this year’s London Fashion Week. Speaking about working processes, collaboration, and the women who have inspired them.

Caryn Franklin & Debra Bourne from All Walks Beyond The Catwalk, screen their latest film compiled for The National Portrait Gallery. Speaking about their journey through industry and their initiative with Erin O Connor changing the face of the fashion industry.

Free Entry

SEATING & DINNER FOR THIS EVENT IS FULLY SUBSCRIBED:
You are welcome to BYOB and join us for a drink