Assembly Speaker, 7 February
Henny Beaumont, Visual Artist
On Monday 7 February, we had the pleasure of listening to Henny Beaumont speak. Henny is a visual artist, political cartoonist, illustrator and graphic novelist, who is an ex-Camden student herself.
One of her most recent projects, following the murder of Sarah Everard in 2021, was painting over 100 women who had been murdered by men in Britain.
Henny showed us some very moving pictures, touchingly replacing the women that she didn’t have pictures of with a painting of some flowers. She also walked us through some very harrowing statistics that show the severity of the issue - for example, that 62% of women killed by men were killed by a current or former partner, and that 34% had children 18 or under. She also discussed some of the more tragic cases of abuse which resulted in death - in the case of the perpetrator being a partner or ex-partner, 70% of killings took place in either the victim’s or perpetrator’s home - such as a man who still had custody of his children, murdered his ex partner and their young child. Some cases also highlighted elements of racism and corruption within the police, such as that found in the handling of the murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman - police were accused of taking pictures with their bodies and sending them to their peers on WhatsApp.
Henny also mentioned her other work, such as political cartoons for the Guardian, one of which depicts a ‘snakes and ladders’ game with all the complications that COVID brought on young people, which won an award for best Covid cartoon of the year. Some were also of a more comedic nature, such as ‘Learning to live with it’, about the 10 Downing Street party. Henny, who is a freelance worker, also told us about her commercial work - including illustrations for children’s competitions. She has worked on a range of socially related projects, such as ‘Hole in the heart’, drawing from personal experiences about her daughter who has Down Syndrome, as well as working with homeless youth to create ‘The book of homelessness’, drawing from their personal experiences, and allowing them to benefit from profits of the book. Other interesting projects included raising awareness about stigmas that come with disability and autism, and the experiences of care leavers in relation to the legal system. She told us about how her inspiration comes from being literal in her work, but also playing on very serious situations.
Henny informed us about her unusual path to working in art - telling us how she didn’t excel academically, but got consistently high grades in Art, and went on to do a Masters degree in the subject, in a range of institutions including Camberwell College, Brighton College, and Goldsmiths. She kindly answered a range of questions, including ‘How do you manage your time?’ - to this she admitted that she has many side projects, and often follows her instincts on projects that interest her, which means she has a very busy schedule! She was also asked when she first got into her field of work - to this she answered that she only began doing cartoons four years ago, after being outraged at the events of Brexit. Questions were asked about how she manages when dealing with dark subject matter, and whether she gets overwhelmed by this - Henny openly told us about how she felt at times that she couldn’t go on during the ‘disappearing women’ project due to the heavy subject matter, and that frankly she likes to unwind by having a good cry or her favourite foods, as well as running. For a more light hearted question, a student was wondering what Henny’s favourite colour was - to which she responded pink. Good choice!
We are very grateful to Henny for her insightful and moving work and for coming to speak to us, and look forward to hopefully seeing her work again.
Alice Y13 Senior Prefect
