14 minute read
Power to change - looking back on five years of POW! Festival as it gears up once more
POWER to CHANGE
International Women’s Day may just be 24 hours, but Thanet has a festival lasting over a week to coincide with it, exploring issues around feminism, women and girls through a rich programme of local arts and cultural activities. Here, some of those involved reflect on the past five years of the festival, as POW! gears up to stage another spectacular programme, which this year will launch in Ramsgate
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Sarah Tait - Poet —
Jan Ryan - Festival Director —
As a Ramsgate poet, and a local woman, I’ve closely followed POW! Thanet since its inception.
In 2018 I gave a poetry reading and workshop based on the life of Jane Pugin, the “Grand Old Lady of Ramsgate”.
A primary motivation is when I can use my words to engage new audiences, which the historical angle of the Mrs Pugin story achieved. I find it most rewarding when I’m able to share poetry with those who might not be previously familiar with what poetry can offer them. I do believe this to be one of the most successful aspects of the POW! Festival.
I’m involved again this year, delivering a series of workshops
at Copperfields, Newington (an assisted living facility). Culminating in a performance to be delivered by the participants at Copperfields. Being able to take poetry directly to where it’s wanted and needed - for me that’s worth its weight in gold. I grew up in Thanet and have lived here for most of my life, so I have a good understanding of our coastal area, and an awareness of the challenges and celebrations of being a local woman and poet within an ever-changing world. POW! Thanet does, for me, seek to combine these perspectives as a vehicle for reflection and change. Long may it continue to give local poets like myself a platform with which to seek to benefit my home town. POW! has been going for over five years now, steadily growing in both scale and the number and range of women involved. 2020 marks our fifth festival and, unlike the previous four, we are opening in Ramsgate - appropriately at the Royal Victoria Pavilion and by Ramsgate’s mayor, Cllr Raushan Ara - in the same spot as where 110 years previously Emmeline Pankhurst campaigned for votes for women.
I have been involved since 2015, when a group of us, inspired by POW!’s founder Christina ClarkeMacQuaid, came together to create the first festival. By opening the festival in Ramsgate this year, we are firmly putting the spotlight on the many partnerships we enjoy with the town, such as with Pie Factory Music, currently working with Amy True, and with Copperfields Retirement Home, which is currently hosting poetry workshops run by Sarah Tait.
Each of Thanet’s towns has its particular focus. In Ramsgate it’s music and cabaret, both of which are integral to POW!’s programme. Artists such as jazz vocalist Sabina Desir and Screaming Alley producer Lara Clifton are regularly part of the festival, while Ramsgate Music Hall is pivotal to its music programme. The most memorable POW! event, though, for me, was in last year’s festival when musician Jessica Lauren created the Mermaid’s Purse at the Sailor’s Church on Ramsgate Harbour - an evening of song and spoken word inspired by the sea, in a setting that was really magical.
This year you will find us at the old fire station, which is hosting a market of work by East Kent female makers; at the Red Arrows Club in Newington with Wink the Other Eye (produced by Screaming Alley); at the Falstaff, which hosts Salon du Chocolat’s salacious tales of the power of chocolate; and at the old Granville Hotel for stories of women whiskey distillers and a chance to sample several varieties of the drink.
This is my last festival with POW!. It has been really exciting to see how far POW! has come in the last five years. We started out as a small local project and now we are a registered charity with a ten-day festival and a programme of community projects. Funding permitting, our aim next year is to operate year round.
Thanks to support from Ramsgate Town Council, POW! has a significant presence in Ramsgate this year. It’s one we want to maintain and build on. We hope you enjoy having us around.
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Sabina Desir - Vocalist —
Matilda Sutton - Artist —
This is my third year participating in POW! and this year myself and Jessica Lauren are curating a piece entitled Freedom Road, combining music taken predominantly from the American civil rights movement, with visuals and audio recordings. The very talented cellist Francesca Ter-Berg will feature in the performance and the work of artist Karen Vost provides the backdrop.
POW! have invested in the area and therefore the people, involving local businesses, community and drawing on a wide range of expertise in Ramsgate and Thanet. In doing so they have pulled the gaze to the many positive elements that are happening in Ramsgate and the wider area.
Collaborations between many artists have been fostered and blossomed. The poisonous myth that women do not work well together is blown out of the water! The confidence and “can do” attitude is infectious.
I hope that POW! continues to grow as a diverse vehicle for the hopes and aspirations of all women, regardless of background and age, for spectators and participants alike.
For a festival happening in this corner of the country, it sure is making some noise!
POW! has given a voice to a group of women with learning disabilities who face many barriers when trying to be involved in society. The POW! projects East Kent Mencap members have been involved in have given them the chance to express their creativity and work with artists. Without the festival’s funding, support and contacts, these projects wouldn’t have happened. We hope this partnership continues for many years!
East Kent Mencap’s GOLD group is for people with a learning difficulty in Thanet who live independently, receive less than five hours of support a week, or live with unpaid carers and receive no other support. East Kent Mencap —
Here’s one member’s reflections on being involved in POW!:
I went with friends from East Kent Mencap’s GOLD group to the Garden Gate project. We learnt about poetry, making plants, and displaying them on green foam. It was very relaxing and we learnt stuff. We are supporting POW! Festival in March. We are making all kinds of bits for the window of GOLD, 215 Northdown Road. I was so surprised at what we can do as strong women all as one team. Billie ( facilitator) made me realise how we treat things and how important the gardens are. Thank you so much to everyone for involving us. I left Thanet just over four years ago in 2015, to start my degree in fine art at Newcastle. This was, I understand, the same year that POW! first began. The Ramsgate I left was, as it is now, very beautiful and quite strange. It was full of magic and special places that inspired me to draw and to make, and was my home when making became the method through which I could explore what it meant to be a girl and a woman. There was nothing quite like POW! back then. It is so exciting and a little emotional
even, to have the opportunity as a new graduate to show my work back home as a part of this fantastic festival. Especially a festival celebrating the contributions of and exploring the issues facing women and girls today. The creative efforts of women and girls have been undervalued, under-represented and even erased for a lot of history. I really believe a local, communitymade festival such as POW!, made by and celebrating women, is so vital not only in its power to change this story, but also in its potential to inspire young people in the area to utilise their voices, creativity and agency.
POW! in Ramsgate — 6/03 | 6-7pm OPENING EVENT WITH CLLR. / MAYOR RAUSHAN ARA POW! opens with music, dance, singing and hula-hooping (Costume making at Wetherspoons from 3.30pm) Meet outside Royal Victoria Pavilion 6/03 | 7.30pm WINK THE OTHER EYE CABARET EVENING Red Arrows Club 5-15/3 | 11am-4pm BE KIND Artist Margo McDaid aka Margo in Margate exhibits. Vinyl Head Gallery 7/03 | 10am-5pm EAST KENT WOMEN MAKERS MARKET Radford House Old Fire Station 8/03 | 11am-midday BONHOMME: WHAT'S COMING OUT OF THE BOX Immersive family show. Pie Factory Music 8/03 | Midday-2pm THANET WOMEN'S DAY Hosted by Raushan Ara, bring a dish reflecting your culture to share. Fundraising for mental health charity Speak Up CIC. Min donation £10. Ramsgate Tandoori 8/03 | 2-4pm CLAY AND IDEAS MODELLING Using clay to ask 'how can girls change the future?' Ages 4-99 Pie Factory Music 9/03 | 8-9.45pm SALON DU CHOCOLAT: SCARY LITTLE GIRLS Chocolate and forbidden literature The Falstaff
14/03 | 2-3pm SONG BENEATH THE TIDES BOOK LAUNCH Author Beverley Birch reads from her fiction book for teenage girls. Moon Lane Bookshop
14-15/03 | 11am5pm IDEAL HOMES Tongue-in-cheek 'ideal' objects created by artists inspired by the 'Ideal Home Exhibition' EMPOWERMENT CHAIRS Clornie Designs produce a chair inspired by women of Thanet. Radford House Old Fire Station
Designs for living
Writer Ros Anderson
Portrait Storme Sabine
Ramsgate-based interior designer Gabriel Holland talks beautiful buildings, female architects and what makes a fail-safe seaside colour palette
What brought you to Ramsgate?
I spent ten years living in Dorset after leaving south-east London where I was born and grew up. As a Londoner I found the countryside quite a struggle, but I did realise that for me having the sea close by is an absolute must. Then, visiting a friend in Ramsgate in the autumn of 2013 I walked into the Queen Charlotte pub and thought, “These are my people”. They were the art school crowd of my student days. On my return I announced to my husband that we were moving. We landed in Ramsgate permanently the following autumn, much to the bemusement of many people who questioned Dorset to Thanet.
How would you sum up the ethos of your design practice?
I suppose “less is more”. I prefer to keep my interiors calm, simple and timeless, plus I always aim to respect the architecture of a building. I’m not interested in what is fashionable or the latest trend, rather I design spaces that suit both the client and the building.
What have you worked on in the area recently?
My project Roseyard has been very exciting, the conversion of a number of agricultural buildings just outside Sandwich into a luxury holiday rental for 22 guests. With poured concrete floors, rustic beams and huge original Crittall windows it has been great to work on something that has a whole different scale than a standard house.
Ramsgate has many beautiful buildings - is there one you’d love to get your hands on?
Obviously the Home for Smack Boys is a gem, but a space that has always intrigued me is the Balcony Restaurant above Argos in the High Street. Not an obvious one with its 1950s balustrade and sheer concrete facade, but I would love to see inside it and imagine what it would have been like during its heyday, when Ramsgate was at the height of its time as a holiday destination. It has a wall of glazed doors that look to fully open up - how amazing if that were to become a club now.
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We have incredible light down here but also it can make looking at colour tricky. Being on an “island” we are surrounded by water on three sides, and this can reflect the light so intensely that sometimes it can feel overwhelming. For me the obvious palette would include the colours around us in nature here, the green-blue of our sea, the chalky white of the cliffs, some of the stone colours in our pebbles and the deep greens of the brassica fields. With our astonishing light though we can get other colours too, including amazing pinks from our evening skies, intense grey clouds shot through with bright orange sunlight and soft yellow summer sands. Gabriel’s seaside colour tips —
You worked as a colour consultant for Farrow & Ball. How important is colour in your work?
Colour is a huge part of what I do, and knowing how to read a building is important; looking at spaces and also considering how the light falls. Working with clients it is imperative that you listen to them. One person’s dark, comforting room will be another person’s gloomy nightmare. Having said that I love to push people with colour and make them take chances that they would be too scared to do on their own.
Sometimes I think buildings talk to us. One of the strangest things that has happened on more than one occasion has been when I have worked on a historic property where I have been absolutely adamant about a room being a particular colour, only to be informed later that when the room has been stripped back this was in fact the original paint colour in the room.
Where do you live in Ramsgate?
I am very lucky to live in a beautiful five storey Regency house in a terrace designed by Mary Townley on the West Cliff. It has some beautiful proportions and Georgian details including shutters, cornices, French windows onto a wrought iron balcony, a curved bay window, sash windows and timber floors throughout, all of which have an easy, comfortable scale and feel to them... The female architect perhaps?
How have you used colour in your own home?
Funnily enough I find for my own home I want to keep everything as simple and pared down as possible. I spend so much time thinking about colour for all my projects that I feel my own home has to remain neutral - a space where I can cleanse my eyes. My home is a place for me to look at the art on the walls and so is mainly off white walls and grey floors - classic art gallery aesthetic I guess.
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