Tour of The Women’s Art Collection exhibition The Sleepers

About the event:

Join us for a tour of the exhibition The Sleepers at The Women's Art Collection in Cambridge. Led by Laura Moseley, Assistant Curator of The WAC, members will have the opportunity to view works by 12 artists exploring sleep, rest and dreams.

Beginning at 4pm, members will meet Laura and the Crafts Council Membership team at the gallery entrance. Laura will guide you through the exhibition and there will be time at the end of the tour to ask her any questions. The tour will end at 5pm, with the option for members to spend further time in the exhibition until 6pm.

If you would like to attend this event and have any accessibility requirements, please contact Memberships Producer, Charlotte Alderman (c_alderman@craftscouncil.org.uk (Opens in a new window))

About the exhibition:

Scenes of rest have long been a generative motif for women artists, helping them to articulate complex and differing experiences of family, health and work. The Sleepers brings together works across a variety of mediums: paintings, prints and textiles, including a collaborative quilt.

Taking its name from one of the three prints on display by wood engraver and painter Gwen Raverat (1885–1957), The Sleepers surveys works by 12 artists to explore why sleeping, dreaming and resting have been depicted by women artists. It also asks us to consider who has access to these vital moments of relief and respite.

Objects, places and phrases associated with rest are stitched into a community quilt by local Cambridge women for the exhibition. This quilt has been created with two Cambridge community groups: the Cambridge Women’s Resource Centre (CWRC), who provide a range of services for women in Cambridge, and Sew Positive, who help those experiencing social exclusion to care for their mental health through craft. Over a period of 6 months, the Art Group at the CWRC worked with The Women’s Art Collection and Cait Moreton-Lisle in a series of conversational workshops to explore their relationship to rest and sleep, whilst working on a square of fabric to capture their creative responses.

This exhibition and its accompanying programme and booklet aims to unpack the differing relationships between women and rest, and consider how they inform our understandings of time, labour and care.

Discover more about the exhibition, by visiting The Women's Art Collection website (Opens in a new window).