144 pots for 144 women
Plus Rubbish Snooker Cues, art as camouflage, we review Medway Café, our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more
Welcome to our Friday briefing edition, which, as always, focuses on arts, culture, and things to do in our towns. Today, we speak to the potter behind an emotional new exhibition based on the 144 women killed by men in the UK in a single year. Further down, we have news of a new project by Rubbish Snooker, details of artist Sophie Jongman’s new exhibition, Steven reviews breakfast at Medway Café, our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more.
144 pots for 144 women
Nicola Vincent-Abnett is a local potter with a new exhibition at the Halpern Gallery in Chatham. We spoke with her about her journey into pottery, the inspiration behind the 144 Pots for 144 Women exhibition, and the production process.
Nicola studied English at university before attending the University of Creative Arts at Canterbury, where she painted and drew things. She has also knitted and sewn, but pottery only recently came into her life. “I sat down on this wheel, and it just made me smile.” That was eight years ago. I went up to the guys at Friars in Aylesford, which is “an amazing setting. They were fantastic, helping and teaching” until she built a studio at her home.
Nicola describes her pottery as ‘domestic homewares’, pots, bowls, beakers and mugs. “I like to make practical things, and then every so ofte,n I'll make something political”. Her current exhibition was inspired by the Femicide Census. This is a count of the women who have been killed by men in the UK each year. The first year count was 2012, the year the exhibition was based on. “Femicide has generally been thrown in with murder, but somebody decided to start counting it, which I think is a fantastic thing to do. In 2012, as of the latest count, there were 144.”
For too long, when these statistics are released, there is a lurch to say, ‘Not all men’, when the reality appears to be that it’s far more likely to be a man than not. We are more uncomfortable with that than with what the stats tell us. “When men do these things, other men call them animals or monsters to separate them from themselves, so we don't have to feel responsible for them.”
Nicola decided to make a pot for each of the 144 women. “It seemed doable. I would be able to make 144 lidded vessels representing these women.” She soon realised it would be more than just making 144 pots in a year. That was just the starting point. As she started to gather information about each of the women to be represented in each pot. “I took what I could off the internet. I've got pictures of quite a lot of these women in the pots. I've got things said at their memorials in their pots.”
Each pot became a shrine to the woman it represents. Nicola collated each of their death certificates, though she admits this was emotionally draining. She would store them and open them in batches. “I've learned things about these women. They were teachers, carers, and extraordinary women who were lovely, educated, funny, and beautiful.”
Nicola is still working on gathering information about some of the women, admitting that “it's quite difficult with some of them.” Whilst she was a potter making pots, she found she was spending as much time on the research, spending as much money collecting artefacts as making the pots. “I wanted to be diligent. I wanted to be sure. I didn't just take for granted that the journalism was correct on any given issue.” Nicola found it especially sad when there were women with almost no trace of them at all.
She decided not to reach out to the families of the women. “You walk a line with these things. It was 13 years ago. I've just seen the prom photographs of one of these women's daughters on the internet. They still celebrate their mothers that way, and it's not my business to interfere with that.” Nicola views the final exhibition as a representation of all women, though if a family member found out and requested a pot, she would “absolutely hand it over.”
The exhibition was originally going to be laid out in age order. The youngest woman is 15, and the eldest is 93. However, some women died together, including sisters and one daughter, and it didn’t feel right to separate them. Eventually, she chose to break up the country into ten districts, with vessels in every district. “People have been asking me questions like, does it happen more in cities? Does it happen more in different classes? And it's completely universal so far as my research has taken me.”
The exhibition is open every day (except Sunday) between 10am and 4pm, and Nicola will be there on Saturday between noon and 4pm “if anybody wants to have a chat with me about anything.” After the exhibition, Nicola is hopeful that other galleries will want to have it. “I feel like it should be out there.”
144 Pots for 144 Women will be displayed at The Halpern Gallery until Wednesday 22 January.
In brief
🏳️🌈 The LGBT+ Monologues is an upcoming performance at Spotlites Theatre as part of LGBT History Month. If you want to contribute a monologue, you can find details on contacting the organisers here.
🏛️ Medway is one of nine places that will benefit from the National Heritage Lottery Fund’s ‘Heritage Places Initiative’ investment. Medway Council is keen to build up a picture of the heritage assets and the sector in Medway, so if you manage or know about heritage assets, let them know here before this Monday (20 Jan).
🍻 Wetherspoons is set to open in Allhallows. The pub chain will open at the Haven holiday park in the village as part of a new partnership.
🎾 Plans have been submitted to build padel tennis courts on prime development land in the centre of Chatham. The nearby Platform 26 coworking space would oversee the facility.
🍽️ The Pumproom restaurant at the Copper Rivet Distillery has suddenly closed. The eatery, owned by the Gillingham and Rainham Conservative Association Chair, blamed the recent government budget for the move.
Rubbish Snooker Cues
Kieran Poole, friend of Local Authority and creator of Rubbish Snooker, is doing something interesting with old snooker cues. Poole has been making mosaics using littered lids and ring pulls on his snooker table for years. He also runs classes about plastic pollution in primary schools, where the children make their own mosaics using litter.


Poole is now involved with The Octopus Foundation, which runs a Men’s Shed programme. He noticed it had “an incredible wood workshop, and I wanted to make something from snooker products there.”
He started searching for discarded cues and happily found a local supplier in Lee Crowhurst, who owns Chatham Pool & Snooker Club. Lee “kindly donated a bunch of very old ‘house’ cues and rests that were destined for landfill”, recalls Poole.
The big question is, what does he do with these cues? “I saw the cues down to foot-long pieces and attach six lids (yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black). Within each lid is a small print of a Rubbish Snooker mosaic”, resulting in a unique, recycled piece of art.
You can learn more about the project and buy your own piece here.
Out to Breakfast: Medway Café
In which Steven Keevil assesses the breakfast options available in our towns. This month, he’s been down to Medway Café in Gillingham…
With my intended eatery closed, I unexpectedly found myself at Medway Café on Gillingham High Street, near the train station. The café was well lit and the staff welcoming, though the furniture has seen better days.
I ordered off menu, requesting four rashers of well-done bacon, three fried eggs, two slices of fried bread, a portion of mushrooms, and tea and apple juice. The food was served promptly and was well-presented and clean, which is always positive given the risk of a greasy plate with such fried foods.
The fried bread was crisp. The egg yolks were well cooked and broke well over the bread, creating a delicious flavoursome mix. The bacon was nice and crispy, going well with the egg whites. The mushrooms were fine. The tea was served in a mug, not a pot, which is not a complaint but an observation of how much tea you get. The apple juice was not served at all.
If you are looking for breakfast in Gillingham, then Medway Café is a good shout, but I wouldn’t travel to Gillingham solely to visit it.
Art as camouflage
Medway artist Sophie Jongman has her first solo art exhibition from 21 January to 6 April. For an artist who has been a lifelong peace activist, holding her first exhibition at the Royal Engineers Museum in Gillingham is a curious choice.
“The museum itself is extremely interesting, being only one of five such museums in the country where artefacts from military tours are on display”, says Sophie, recalling visiting the museum repeatedly and finding its artefacts fascinating. As a result, the museum and its pieces have inspired her work. Sophie used to write stories about her visits for social media posts from 2009 onwards, so it’s fair to say that this exhibition has been a long time coming.
Initially, she planned to create a series of four paintings of women who led armies. However, this project was not completed after “the first one I did was Joan of Arc, but many people didn't like it or were disturbed by it.”
Eventually, she decided on the theme of ‘Camouflage.’ “That was not only a military strategy, but was also a strategy for me as a civilian in an urban environment due to the radical nature of my own political stance as a peace activist and a revolutionary socialist.”
This exhibition centres around the necessity of survival during times of war, battles, and our civilian lives. There are depictions of life and war from medieval, pre-medieval, modern, and mystical perspectives. The exhibition aims to evoke a sense of our common ground as human beings and give space for reflection.
Sophie’s first solo show has been “a dream come true for me, to have my work in a museum”. To learn more about the show, you can find the Royal Engineers page here, and Sophie’s Facebook event here. An earlier Local Authority piece about Sophie and her exhibition with Peter Reeds can be found here.
Events this week
🥕 Sun 19 Jan - Rochester Farmers’ Market // Wide range of traders selling food and gifts. Blue Boar Lane car park, Rochester. Free.
📽️ Mon 20 Jan - Screen Unseen // Mystery screening of an upcoming, and usually quite good, film. Odeon, Chatham. Tickets £7.
🗣️ Thu 23 Jan - Full Medway Council meeting // Elected representatives squabble over how to do things. St George’s Centre, Chatham. Free.
More Authority
Three Medway Council seats are up for grabs in by-elections next month, and we wanted to investigate the history of the wards and the chances for each party standing. To do this, we’ve drafted in Alan Collins, founder of Medway Elects, an incredible website that tracks the full electoral history of our towns. He analyses past elections and what might happen in this one.
Coming up on Sunday for paid supporters, we sit down with Tracy Coombs, Medway Council’s Portfolio Holder for Education. We discuss what brought her to Medway, the challenge of class sizes, the most trouble she got into at school, and lots more.
Remember that our Medwayish shop contains a wide range of Medway-related gifts and products designed by local creatives. We have books, mugs, t-shirts, prints, and other fun items. Check it out!
Footnotes
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