‘Ribbons’ is a sculpture that celebrates women of Leeds, both past and present, who have made a contribution to the city. It is located at Playhouse Gardens between Leeds Playhouse and Leeds City College, UK.
The project was conceived by the Rt Hon Rachel Reeves (Chancellor of the Exchequer and MP Leeds West) in partnership with Leeds City Council, Leeds Arts University and Leeds City College to champion women’s achievements and provide a more balanced gender representation of public sculpture in the city.
The work comprises several metal ribbons that carry the names of 383 women nominated by the public. They include women who have broken glass ceilings and overcome cultural, social, economic and physical barriers to rise to the top of their professions to those who fly beneath the radar and whose contribution is neither seen nor recognised.
Although constructed from 8mm corten steel, Ribbons appears fluid, almost ‘feminine’ as it curves through space creating flowing patterns that dance and contrast with the crisp geometry of the surrounding buildings at Playhouse Gardens.
The title of the work references the ribbons used to make the sashes and rossettes worn by the suffragettes, and those used to decorate female clothes and hair. However the dictionary definition of a ribbons is also ‘a strip of fabric that binds many parts together’. Here their names are connected, tied together over space and time in a celebration of womanhood that is embedded in the very fabric of the city.
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PARTNERS
Leeds City Council, Leeds Arts University, Leeds City College,
SUPPORTERS
LeedsBID, Leeds Civic Trust, Caddick Developments, Leeds Playhouse, the Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation and the Henry Moore Foundation.
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You can read more about the making of Ribbons in my Journal and on a dedicated website about Ribbons which includes an essay by Prof Griselda Pollock and bios of all the women included on the sculpture.
