The Monday Morning Coffee Group at Edgbaston Community Centre have been working with Artist Carolyn Morton to creatively ‘Represent’ their ideas surrounding the impact of gaining, and using the vote, 100 years on. University of Birmingham student intern, Sophie Brenner writes about their journey over the past few months. Back in September, the Represent project staff worked with community participants to develop a brief for an Artist commission. From a number of applicants, the groups picked the Artist whose work they liked best, and who they felt would best deliver their hopes for a creative project. Carolyn started by focusing the group’s attention on whether the group would have gained…

This morning during our workshop at Edgbaston Community Centre, we observed a silence at 11am for Remembrance Day. It is 101 years since the guns fell silent at the end of World War One, but also 101 years since those who were so affected by that war were first able to use their vote in the December 1918 General Election. Prior to the war, only 2 in 5 men were able to vote – young men under 30 and working class men were excluded. So many were asked to shed their blood, but not to decide who governed them, who sent them to the battlefields, or who would make important decisions about…

In the current political climate, the default answer of people when asked if they are political seems to be that they are generally bewildered or disillusioned with politics. When so many people seem disenfranchised by ongoing political soap operas, it can be hard to appreciate the importance of our right to vote.

Our Project Evaluator, Moya Lloyd, has been reflecting on some of our work with a group of elders at Edgbaston Community Centre. Through learning about the life stories of participants through their sharing, she has made connections from her own family's stories.