Tender Women
Spring 2025 Commission, The Women’s MuseumTender Women is a Spring 2025 artistic commission developed through a series of five creative workshops with members of the Adanna Women’s Support Group. Commissioned by the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham and presented at The Women’s Museum, the project was conceived and led by artist and designer Sahra Hersi.
The workshops introduced participants to a range of artistic processes, including indigo dyeing, cyanotype printing, cross-stitching, collage making, and poetry writing. These creative sessions offered space for reflection on how women navigate their roles in society, exploring themes of autonomy, collective care, and the pursuit of self-defined futures.
The exhibition brings together selected artworks created during the workshops, alongside a new site responsive work by Hersi. The title Tender Women was chosen collectively by participants during a collaborative poetry exercise, capturing the spirit of the process: one of shared vulnerability, strength, and connection.
The project takes inspiration from the idea of Desire Lines, unofficial pathways created by repeated movement, often cutting through or against established routes. In this context, desire lines served as a metaphor for the uncharted paths women create for themselves, intuitive, necessary, and shaped by lived experience.
Through this lens, the workshops invited participants to consider how they make space for themselves in the world, physically, emotionally, and socially.
Workshop Series
Experimentation, Reflection, and Collective Care
The workshops were designed to offer a supportive, non-judgemental space for creative exploration. For many of the women involved, this was their first experience working with techniques such as cyanotype or indigo dyeing. Although not all identified as artists, each participant engaged with the materials and themes in ways that affirmed their voices, experiences, and aspirations.
Workshop 1 – Getting to Know Each Other
The group began by sharing stories and creating collages that reflected personal hopes and collective ambitions.
Workshop 2 – Cross-Stitching and Desire Lines
Participants learnt cross-stitch techniques and worked collaboratively to visualise the idea of desire lines through embroidery.
Workshop 3 – Indigo Dyeing and Personal Manifestos
Using wax-resist methods, each participant created an indigo-dyed napkin and wrote a short manifesto—a statement of strength, encouragement, or care for themselves and others.
Workshop 4 – Poetry and Collective Voice
Participants created individual poems using a collage method, drawing on texts by Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, and Begum Rokeya’s Sultana’s Dream. These poems were later combined to form Poem by Tender Women, a visual installation made with coloured tape.
Workshop 5 – Cyanotype Printing and Local Nature
The final session focused on cyanotype printing using local foliage. Participants worked with natural materials and light exposure to create works grounded in their immediate environment.
Exhibition and Acknowledgements
The resulting exhibition showcases a selection of works created throughout the workshop process, presented alongside a new responsive piece by Sahra Hersi. Tender Women highlights the beauty of process-led practice and the transformative potential of collective creativity.
With thanks to the women of Adanna and The Women’s Museum for their openness and generosity in sharing their stories and artworks.
Special thanks to:
Evelyn, Harjit Kaur, Liz, M.E., Ms Wu, Ronke, Shareen Akhtar, Yvette, and others who preferred to remain anonymous.
Project Team
Graphic Design: Claire Mason — @shapethepage
Fabrication and Install: Lucy Woodhouse
Curator (The Women’s Museum): Siobhán Forshaw
Commissioned by: Precious Jeffers, Cultural Programmes, London Borough of Barking & Dagenham