Exhibitions and other projects

 

Cheryl has created, produced and managed several major exhibitions:

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How the Vote Was Won was an exhibition about the use of the Arts and Media by the Suffragettes to win hearts and minds for the campaign for the vote. It was curated by Susan Croft and V. Irene Cockroft. The exhibition included jewelry by suffrage artist Ernestine Mills , supplied by her great-niece V. Irene Cockroft.

It was exhibited at the Museum of Richmond for 5 months in 2010 to celebrate the centenary of Cicely Hamilton's play How the Vote Was Won performed at Twickenham Town Hall in 1910. An accompanying book was published titled Art, Theatre and Women's Suffrage. The project was supported by HeritageLottery.

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The exhibition attracted over 5000 people and was subsequently shown at Birkbeck University, Rose Bruford College of the Arts and in Stevenage and Camden. It was funded by the Heritage Lottery. See www.the suffragettes.org

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In 2018, the centenary of some women getting the vote in the UK, Cheryl organised a touring exhibition in the southeast of England to multiple venues, updating the earlier Suffragette Exhibition and reproducing it on several pop up banners. In addition, an accompanying book was published titled The Original Suffrage Cook book, which was a revised edition of a 1915 cookery book by American suffragettes compiled by Mrs L.O. Kleber. This book was featured in The Guardian and launched at an event at The Exchange in Twickenham alongside a talk about 'Vegetarianism and the Suffragettes', given by Louise Quick. A short film was made to promote the tour which you can see here.

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Eelpiland: the birth of Rhythm and Blues was a multi-media project in 2013 involving an exhibition at Orleans House in Twickenham which ran for 2 months and attracted over 6000 people. It was curated by Michele Whitby and subsequently was shown at Brentford Musical Museum for a month. An accompanying book was published titled The British Beat Explosion; Rock n roll Island which was voted best book on the Blues in 2014.

The project also involved music gigs with the Eel Pie Club, training and workshops for young people and the making of a music documentary, also titled Rock n Roll Island. This film won 4 awards at film festivals as a 30 minute documentary and then was extended to a 60-minute documentary which was shown on BBC4 in 2020, garnering 750,000 views and a Sunday Times critics choice.

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Another great outcome of the project was that our curator Michele Whitby and volunteer Pete Watt went on to establish the Eel Pie Island Museum in Twickenham www.eelpieislandmuseum.co.uk to house the collected memorabilia and digitized photo portfolios amassed as part of the heritage conservation process. The project was supported by Heritage Lottery.

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In 2022, working with Ealing Club CIC, we led a project to publish a book titled Rock's Diamond Year to celebrate the 60th anniversary of electric blues in Ealing and to create a local archive project to preserve arts and music heritage in the area. This resulted in the www.metroarchives.org project. We invite the public to contribute films, videos, photos and memorabilia

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50 LGBTQI+ who changed the world

In June 2023 for Pride month, Cheryl launched a pop up touring exhibition to tie in with the new book 50 LGBTQI+ who changed the world by Florent Manelli. The exhibition opened at Strawberry Hill House (aka queer castle) in Twickenham and is on tour to Camden, Epsom, Woking, Barnet and other places during 2023.

see www.aurorametro.org or eventbrite for dates and related talks.

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The project was supported by Arts Council Lottery Awards, The French Ministry of Culture, the Institut Francais, Stop Hate and ELOP.

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Other Major Projects

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In 2009, Cheryl launched a biennial competition for women novelists in
honour of Virginia Woolf, an important literary figure who lived for a decade in Richmond, near to the office of Aurora Metro. Called The Virginia Prize for Fiction, to date there have been over 600 entries to the competition and six new authors have had their novels published. One of them, Glaswegian author Fiona Rintoul, also had her novel The Leipzig Affair, subsequently shortlisted for the Saltire Award and it was adapted as a BBC Book at Bedtime.

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To enter go here.

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In 2017, Cheryl launched a project with the sister charity Aurora Metro Arts and Media to fundraise and erect a statue to Virginia Woolf in Richmond and commissioned sculptor Laury Dizengremel to make it. The beautiful bronze statue was finally unveiled in November 2022 on Richmond Riverside and has been warmly received by the public.

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See more at: www.aurorametro.org

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