Wednesday Artist: Catherine Cartwright

We all have a right to refuge.

~ "The Refuge Manifesto"

Contemporary multi-media artist Catherine Cartwright of the United Kingdom is primarily a printmaker and filmmaker with a special interest in exploring notions of containment and how women who are adversely affected by socio-political agendas or policies navigate through a place of refuge both to save and reestablish their lives.

The lovely and moving animated film The Refuge Manifesto, produced by Cartwright during a 10-week art project, "Art House", with women who have suffered domestic or sexual abuse, explores personal concepts of refuge. It followed Cartwright's five-month artist residency at a women's refuge center in Exeter (see second documentary). Artist Nicci Wonnacott and animation facilitator Joshua Gaunt aided the women in using art to express their ideas.

The following film augments Cartwright's work with collaborator Joshua Gaunt on The Last Resident, which was filmed at a women's refuge center in Exeter, run by Stop Abuse for Everyone (SAFE); the center closed for lack of funding in March 2014, after having given women a safe haven for some 38 years. The documentary captures the thoughts and reflections of the center's last resident. No similar center has replaced it.

The Last Resident from Joshua Gaunt on Vimeo.

Also see Cartwright's excellent 2015 series of prints, To Have and To Hold, which respond to her exploration of non-violent coercive control ("hidden abuse"), and Contained Freedom, from 2013-2014, which were made using drypoint and monoprint techniques.

See more of Catherine Cartwright's work.

Catherine Cartwright on FaceBook and Vimeo

Text of "The Refuge Manifesto"

Art House Project

Joshua Gaunt on Vimeo