I would like to nominate Sarah Filmer as a community legend for her ground-breaking artistic work in the City.

I first came across Sarah’s work back in 2016 when I was one of the 600 local women who responded to her call to support a project at God’s House Tower in Southampton in a bid to overturn its “deeply gendered” record of history (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-37810942)

“Over 600 women turned up to the event and 429 stories of women were collected, at the October event, which aimed to reverse “700 years of ignored female history”, said Sarah. It was an amazing day of song, spoken word, drawing, photography and poetry which brought together female residents from all walks of life. A few years later, Sarah started the project Knitting the Walls, where men, women and children came together regularly over a period of 3 years or more to knit (or learn to knit) pieces of knitting that were used in 2023 to creative an entire room and all its contents made of wool, inside the God’s Tower.

These are Sarah just a couple of her works. She produces outstanding artistic work which democratises art in the course of community engagement projects at their best.