Beginning this September 2023:
The Bonnet Project supports participants to make a bonnet and be part of the ‘Roses from the Heart’ international project.
Roses from the Heart™ is a unique memorial to the 25,566 convict women transported to Australia from Britain and Ireland from 1788 to 1853. The concept is that of Christina Henri, an artist completing her PhD in Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Tasmania.
The project involves the making of a bonnet, similar to that worn at the time, to commemorate the life and contribution each of the transported women made towards the founding of a new nation. Already 15,000 bonnets have been contributed from all parts of the world, many of these from descendants of the original transportees. The bonnets made with the support of the Waterford Women’s Centre’s Bonnet Project focus on the Waterford Women who were transported at that time.
This project enables participants to learn the skills necessary to make a bonnet and have an appreciation of these heroic women’s history. The bonnets are then exhibited and form part of International Women’s Day each year. Each bonnet made is included in the larger Waterford collection and archive of bonnets made and from part of the larger Roses from the Heart collection.
To apply email Kate.Crotty@womenscollective.ie with your name and contact details or telephone 051 -351918 or text 089 4556184 or call to the Women’s Centre 74-76 Manor Street, Waterford
Supported through the REACH Fund by the WWETB and Solas.
