For conservation reasons, banners and textiles are stored separately from our other paper-based collections, but if they have been donated as part of a larger collection, the connection is recorded in our catalogue.
This is a dynamic collection: new items are being added all the time, and we welcome new donations to extend the range of the collection.
For obvious reasons we have a lot of items local to our archive’s home in Leeds. East Leeds Women’s Workshop was established in 1981 and provided free vocational training for women in carpentry and electronics for 18 years. This banner was donated as part of a larger collection which documents the life of the project.
One of our most striking textile works is a banner produced by woman attending the Milun Centre in the Harehills area of Leeds. ‘Milun’ means ‘together’ in three languages – Punjabi, Urdu and Bengali – and the centre offered activities, classes and a creche to Asian women. The banner is made of worsted wool and the imagery reflects the textile industry the community worked in. It is accompanied by a beautiful workbook put together by the women when they were researching the visual elements of the banner.
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Leeds also features heavily in our lesbian materials. The First National Older Lesbian Conference took place in Leeds in 2003, as this tote bag records.
Leeds Lesbian Line produced this colourful banner in the 1990s.
In 2019 the annual Lesbian Strength march was revived in Leeds and FAN has been fortunate to have been given a number of banners over the years.
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One of the joys of our Textiles and Banners collection is the number of home-made banners and other items. These tell us that women will protest with whatever materials they have to hand – and if that means simply painting on a sheet, it still proclaims their message.
