Menopause Messages

The Menopause Messages project took place at the Whitworth Art Gallery during summer 2022. The project formed a research element to the broader ‘Creative responses to the Menopause’ Age Friendly programme at the gallery.

The sessions were facilitated by Helen Clare, a creative practitioner with extensive menopause knowledge. There was a series of six workshops which comprised, a creative writing workshop, fans, banners, bags and books. We used a range of creative techniques to explore the menopause journey, including painting, drawing, stencilling, applique, embroidery and a mixture of fabrics and trimmings – which including recycled material and remnants. Many of those fans, bags, banners and books feature in this zine.

The project brought together groups of women from all stages of the menopause transition, from diverse backgrounds, with a full range of levels of experience in different creative practices.

In order to create a safe space for the sessions we worked in a spirit of playfulness and exploration and while we worked we talked about menopause, about our experience of it, our attitudes towards it, our beliefs about it.

During the process we discussed two key questions. Does creativity help menopause? and does menopause change creativity?.

At the end of each session we wrote our thoughts on fabric, sometimes decorating the fabric and attached them either side of the quilts you’ll see in the pictures.

In addition to the creative workshops we also invited a group of women creative practitioners with experience of menopause to join us in a discussion group. We created group poems – some of which are featured here – and had a profound and passionate discussion about our experiences of menopause and perimenopause and of our lives as women in our varying creative fields.

There are snippets of that discussion and created the word collages also featured in this ‘zine. The experience of this project and the insights of the women were inspiration for the article about menopause and creativity at the back of this ‘zine.

Helen Clare – Menopause Messages Project facilitator

Claire Cowell – Whitworth Age Friendly Producer

Thank you to everyone who has taken part in this project, thank you for your time, your openness, your honesty, your humour, your inventiveness, your energy, your talent and your generosity of spirit.