Catalogue Number
NMLH.2024.61.4
Object Name
postcard
Place
Greenham Common
People
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Greenham Common Peace Camp, Jolanta Scicinska (artist)
Events
Greenham Common Peace Camp
Description
A black postcard with a reproduction of a multicoloured papercut in the centre. This is shaped like the world, with abstract vine and leaf designs, and a row of women holding hands in the middle of the image. The protesters are wearing different styles of clothing and hair textures. Some are wearing religious headcoverings, and one is wearing a top with the lesbian symbol (two venus/woman symbols intertwined) on it.
This art was designed by Jolanta Scicinska, to represent women at the Green Gate at Greenham Common Peace Camp. There were nine camps at Greenham, named for different rainbow colours and while all of Greenham's occupants were women, most of the camps allowed men to visit, and to participate in protests they organised if they were invited guests and followed the leadership of the women organisers. By contrast, Green Gate was an exclusively women only space, and did not allow men to visit or participate in their spaces the way the other camps did. The art includes a woman wearing a top with a lesbian symbol on it - the contributions of lesbians to Greenham Peace Camp is well documented. The card has been professionally printed, and sent to someone, suggesting that the women at the camp possibly sold these designs as a means of fundraising.
Greenham Common Peace Camp was founded in 1981 to protest the British government's decision to allow cruise missiles to be stored in the UK by the United States Air Force. Cruise missiles can be used to carry nuclear bombs - as well as being against the use of nuclear weapons, protesters in the Cold War era were also concerned that the storing of American nuclear capable weapons in the UK would make the UK a target for the Soviet Union to attack. The last missiles left RAF Greenham in 1991, but the camp remained until September 2000, when the protesters were granted the right to create a peace memorial on the site.
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