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In the summer of 1981, a group of women marched hundreds of miles from Cardiff to Hampshire and chained themselves to the fence at Greenham RAF base to protest the deployment of cruise missiles. Around the site were numerous mini camps, each named after colours in the rainbow, which held together a community that remained in place until 2000. Many of you will already know this history, ingrained as it is in our national psyche.
Raissa Pages iconic black-and-white photograph summarises the spirit of Greenham Common well. A circle of women link hands atop a missile silo. It is New Years Day in 1983 and the group has just breached the perimeter fence. Silhouetted against the sky, the women are framed in the foreground by barbed wire and police cars. Pages image emphasises the non-hierarchical collectivism and solidarity of the group, a joyful rebuke to the military complex that surrounds them.
Published by Four Corners to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the original march, Women for Peace: Banners from Greenham Common tells the story of the peace camps through their visual culture, including banners, posters, drawings, badges and flyers. Editor Charlotte Dew has wisely put the visual material...