Speakers

Dr Sarah-Joy Ford is a Todmorden based artist and independent scholar working with quilting to explore the complexities and pleasures of queer communities, histories and archives. This practice sits at intersection of digital and traditional: using strategies of quilting, digital embroidery, digital print and hand embellishment. She was the recipient of an NWDTCP award for her PhD research examining quilting as an affective methodology for re-visioning British lesbian archive, at Manchester School of Art. 

Solo exhibitions include Rabbit at Bury Art Museum 2024, HARE at Bobinska Brownlee Gallery 2023 (London), Looking for Lesbians at ONE Gallery 2022 (Los Angeles), Beloved at Plas Newydd Historic House and Gardens 2022 (Llangollen) and Archives and Amazons: A Quilters Guide to the Lesbian Archive 2021 at HOME (Manchester).

Her work has been widely commissioned for A Tall Order at Touchstones Rochdale (2023); Un-Defining Queer at The Whitworth Manchester (2022) and Manchester Science Park, Bruntwood (2022-2023). Her work is held in numerous collections including The Whitworth, Manchester; The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, Soho House Global Art Collection and The ONE Archives, Los Angles.

Her writing has been published across a range of publications including Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, MAI: Feminist Visual Cultures, SOANYWAY and The Journal of Lesbian Studies.