Art Metropole

#14926

Feminist Flip Book

Artist

Alexandra Karl

Date

2022

Publisher

Alexandra Karl

Format

Artists' Books

Size

10 × 5 × 1.5 cm

Genre

Flip-book

This limited edition ‘Feminist Flip Book’ was made to acknowledge the foresight and determination of suffragettes around the world. It is a reminder that women could not always vote, they had to campaign and protest for this right.

The flip book depicts English suffragette Emily Davison who campaigned tirelessly for the cause. During her lifetime, she was arrested nine times, went on seven hunger strikes and was force-fed 49 times. She died in 1913 after stepping out into an oncoming horserace, depicted in the flip book.

Davison’s funeral was attended by 5000 suffragettes and 50,000 people lined her processional route through London. It is said that Davison’s death marked the end of the great suffragette spectacles in England and led to a turning point in the suffragette campaign and the acquiescence of politicians.

Women in England were granted partial rights in 1918 and full voting rights in 1928. In the US, the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920. Although they campaigned and marched alongside their fellow suffragettes, this did not apply to women of color, due to ongoing racism among the suffragettes. African-American women, Asian women, Hispanic women and Indigenous women would have to wait until the 1960s to vote.