Criminal Quilts is an art & heritage project inspired by photographs and documents relating to women held in Stafford Prison 1877-1916, created and developed by me in partnership with Staffordshire Record Office. Following a period as Artist in Residence at Staffordshire Record Office, I created a touring exhibition and book of the project. The exhibition toured until 2022 when the project ended.
The original Criminal Quilts work was a commission for Shire Hall Gallery and I developed the work for a further 12 years to create a large body of work, a book and a broad following across academia, archives and art for this work. One of my earlier pieces for Criminal Quilts also won the Fine Art Quilt Masters prize in 2016.
Other Criminal Quilts resources and info:
Read case studies of some of the women featured in the artworks: Criminal Quilts Case Studies
You can read about some of the archive and historical research in blog posts
Find out about the creative residency at Wolverhampton University to create large-scale new work
Discover more about a history display for Staffordshire libraries called Criminal Herstories
Three exhibitions in 2018 and more in 2019 onwards
Working with community groups in Staffordshire who have limited access to art projects
An academic symposium with Wolverhampton University
A short documentary film about the project
Find out more:
A book about the project – available to purchase
A series of talks which are available to buy and watch
Project background
- I have been working with these images since 2012 when I was commissioned by Shire Hall Gallery to make work for their historic court buildings
- I continued working on Criminal Quilts from 2013-2015 and these new pieces formed part of my solo exhibition Narrative Threads in 2015
- One of those pieces won the Fine Art Quilt Masters competition in 2016
- Read about the background to the project here
This project has been funded by Arts Council England, Staffordshire County Council and Brewhouse Art Centre.
Ruth Singer 