Archive celebrates 'ordinary, incredible' women

Penetration singer Pauline Murray is one of the women featured in the Working Lass archive

A "living archive" aims to preserve and celebrate women and organisations across the north-east of England.

Working Lass is the culmination of a six-month project by Sunderland-based Pink-collar Gallery to commemorate people across the region who have contributed towards women's liberation.

They include County Durham-born Penetration musician Pauline Murray, Heather Wood, who was heavily involved in the Women Against Pit Closures movement, and late BBC Tees radio presenter Julie Donaldson.

Michaela Wetherell, director of the gallery, said she decided to do the project so the women who had contributed so much to their communities were not forgotten.

It began with a series of community-led nomination workshops, where local residents came together to nominate women in the community they thought deserved to be celebrated.

Of the nominations, 10 were initially chosen.

Ms Wetherell said the archive would initially live on the gallery's website and she hoped they could keep adding to it so it could become a large database of women who have contributed to their communities across the North East.

'Going to get forgotten'

"There's women in there who kind of have just been like plodding along and making work and doing things and never really getting the credit for them," Ms Wetherell said.

"I think when we talk about women, we talk about bigger stories, and these are more ordinary, incredible women who do ordinary and incredible things in their day-to-day lives."

In the archive is Sunderland's former Bridge Project, which closed its doors in 2012, but for two decades provided women with pathways into education and work.

Women's Health in South Tyneside is also included, alongside charity Wearside Women in Need, artists Padma Rao Padma, Theresa Easton Odette Johnson and the writers collective, Vane Women.

"I feel like if we don't start archiving and we don't start logging this, it's going to get forgotten, like it always does," Ms Wetherell said.

"It never gets the true parade that it should."

The archive will officially launch on Thursday.