How many of us walk past the World War One memorials to men who died in war from our villages and towns, using them as landmarks, places to sit in the sun, meet up, munch a snack? The movement that led to their installation, like that campaign for cemeteries in Flanders for the fallen in that first industrial war with its massive slaughter was not the first example of sculptural commemoration. In fact, our cities are dotted with monuments to named individuals, who personalize history. They are usually the powerful, rulers, statesmen (rarely stateswomen), adventurers and those made rich, as we know, in the trade of goods and most horrifically of people. As consciousness of the politics of history these monuments set in stone led to assaults and even destruction of statues to historical traders in human beings whose celebration caused daily anguish to many British citizens, public awareness was focussed on many sculptures that ‘clutter’ up our parks or serve as location markers, but mark deep wounds to many in our society. 

Feminists questioned why so many of the commemorated and indeed the powerful were only men. This led to projects to increase the representation of women of the past on our streets. Heroines like the nurse Edith Cavell (1865-1915), shot by the Germans for the assistance she gave to escaping British soldiers in WW1 watch over the entry to Trafalgar Square in London, and in 2018 a statue by Gillian Wearing of suffrage campaigner Millicent Fawcett (1847-1929) was finally placed amongst the all-men company of political leaders in Parliament Square. In 2020, a statue of the feminist and author of the Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, Mary Wolstonecraft (1759-97) by Maggi Hambling installed in Newington Green in North London incited a wide variety of responses, many negative, because the statue did not meet expectations of how to celebrate a woman intellectual.

Bringing memory of ordinary women off their pedestals, in 2016 a sculpture of Amy Johnson (1903-1941), the pioneering solo-aviator, tragically lost in a storm during World War II, now strides joyfully in her aviator helmet jodhpurs and boots along the promenade in Hull and a second casts smiles upon visitors in Herne Bay where she was lost after crashing into the sea. In 1986, the Edinburgh, another sculpture has been placed, close to the to mark the city’s stand against apartheid in South Africa by placing a sculpture of a proudly and bravely defiant black South African woman and her anxious child. Martin Jennings placed in Sheffield two women workers in working clothes, trousers, shirts, caps and solid boots walking along the pavement outside who represent Women in Steel, for so long the major industry of this city.

Some people have names, already celebrated by history; others are the unnamed representatives of women.  This is where Ribbons will make its intervention. One of the most powerful war memorials, to revert to where I started, was just a wall of names, Maya Lin created an anti-monument to those American servicewomen and men killed during the Vietnam War, by cutting a wound into the earth that led down a long pathway of polished granite on which every name was inscribed. Instead of the famous, the unusual, the exceptional, and perhaps the influential, every drafted soldier has a name.

Ribbons is a monumental work of tangled and flowing ribbons of Corten steel placed n Playhouse Gardens, Leeds. Its massive scale creates a space as large as the arching legs of Louise Bourgeois’ mysterious giant spider (2000). It also reminds me of the ribbon of steel — signifying the words and ideas that changed the world of women — flowing from the mind of white US-American suffrage campaigners Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in a statue by Meredith Bergman who won the 2018 Central Park State Competition in response to the question ‘Where Are the Monumental Women?’   

What makes Ribbons special, different and game-changing is that it does not make any one or even a few women represent all women. It does not celebrate a single remarkable or famous woman. Like Maya Lin’s it will simply provide names. These are not those who died in a war. Ribbons is an acknowledgement to many lives of service, of commitment, of care, of creativity, of passion for social justice, of quiet determination to make a difference to their city, its communities, its needy, its vulnerable and its creativity. The names that fill this sculpture by Pippa Hale are chosen from an open call for nominations. Instead of selective record of public figures, the women’s names are come from within the communities who cherish each name and honour each woman who has lived and worked in Leeds.

Each name has also been a force for life in the city, in education, social care, health, the arts, special needs provision, political service, creative work. 

Why do we need to know these names from the huge ‘army’ — how is it that we use that military word for peaceful service? — of women sustaining so many aspects of the life of people in all communities in this city? For many years I waited at the traffic lights beside the Mary Seacole Garden in Chapeltown. Healer Mary Grant Seacole (1805-1881) was born in Kingston Jamaica and died in London after having travelled widely and worked as a healer and provider of sustenance in Crimea during the infamous war of that name. She became known with the publication in 1857 of her book, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands the first autobiography of a black British woman. Her name is now celebrated in the Mary Seacole Nurses Association. I knew her name before I moved to Leeds, but I realize now how that idle moment at the traffic light, reading that name at the heart of Chapeltown replanted it, shook my memory, led to reading the book again and finding out more.

If the women of the world are nameless armies of workers, carers, mothers, thinkers, creators, their work still has its effects, but we are not changed. Names open doors to stories, deeds, and the example of people who do not seek power or influence but everyday tip the scales in favour of humanity through dedication, invention, courage and above all, doing something for others and the world.

Ribbons has collected over 600 nominations for 383 women which will begin the river of memory and celebration of the women of Leeds. As a sculpture, its flowing steel form keeps it alive, like an unfinished scroll. Its title, however, is inspired by the badges, made of many colours, used by women in their workplaces and on their demonstrations marching for the vote, for women’s rights, for peace, for justice, for a planetary future and more.

The names on Ribbons are names for life, sharing and keeping the memory of everyday lives that have been remarkable in making the city of Leeds in quiet, constant and dedicated work with and for others.

Women make a difference. We need to know their names.

— Griselda Pollock

Griselda Pollock (born 1949) is a feminist art historian and cultural analyst of international, postcolonial feminist studies in the visual arts and visual culture. She is Professor of Social and Critical Histories of Art at the University of Leeds.