Artist - Lucy Panesar - The Smoking Suffragettes

Photo of a smoking suffragette, with vibrator poised in one hand, and headband with feathers

In 2007 I created The Smoking Suffragettes, a performance inspired by a publicity stunt intended to encourage women to smoke.

Edward Bernays, the godfather of Public Relations, directed the stunt to take place as part of the 1929 Easter Parade in New York City, involving a group of debutantes simultaneously lighting up cigarettes and smoking them in public. He stood by ready to tell the press that these women were suffragettes demonstrating female equality by smoking their 'torches of freedom'. Instead of smoking cigarettes my performers smoked vibrators, a literal representation of Bernays’ psychoanalytical ideas about female empowerment. My performance was choreographed to 'La donna è mobile' by Enrique Caruso, who was another of Bernays’ clients.

Photo of the back of three smoking suffragettes with vibrators poised, walking into the centre of a park towards Lucy Panesar.

Photo of all smoking suffragettes in the centre of the park, surrounding Lucy who holds a megaphone.

The performance first took place for Rational Rec at the Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, and then again on International Womens Day at Corsica Studios and also at the Camberwell Arts Festival. It was last performed on 19 June 2007, outside the British American Tobacco Association head office in Aldwych, to mark the UK smoking ban. In the same month, it was broadcast on Resonance FM, screened at the Colchester Arts Centre and reviewed in Art Monthly (see below).

Photo of a smoking suffragette, holding a small vibrator as if she is smoking it.

Photo of all smoking suffragettes holding their vibrators like cigarettes.

In May 2009, The Smoking Seminar was held at University of the Creative Arts to mark the two year anniversary of the UK smoking ban and critically examine the role that artists and designers have played in influencing the way we think about smoking.

The seminar invited responses from a panel including: art historian Brenda Zwart (CoBra, Amsterdam), advertising decoder Judith Williamson (University for the Creative Arts) and smoking ban commentator Michael Hodges (Time Out). It was chaired and recorded by curator and broadcaster Cecilia Wee, and then broadcast on Resonance FM on 1st July 2009.

Photo of the review published in Art Monthly about the smoking suffragettes, including a photo of one performer holding her vibrator.