Criminal Quilts is an art & heritage project inspired by photographs and documents relating to women and crime 1877-1916 held at Staffordshire Record Office. I am currently Artist in Residence at the record office, working with volunteers to research stories about women criminals photographed in Stafford Prison 1877-1916. I am also working on a major exhibition of Criminal Quilts – research and textiles which will launch at Festival of Quilts in August 2018 and then tour Staffordshire and beyond in 2018-19. The project has been developed and run by Ruth Singer in partnership with Staffordshire Record Office.
Criminal Quilts has many different strands:
Volunteer project doing archive research and creative activities
Creative residency at Wolverhampton University to create large-scale new work
Opportunities for students and communities to create artwork inspired by the research
A history display for Staffordshire libraries called Criminal Herstories
Creation of my own new artwork
Three exhibitions in 2018 and more in 2019 onwards
A book about the project containing both artwork and research
Working with community groups in Staffordshire who have limited access to art projects
Workshops, talks and events around Staffordshire and beyond
An academic symposium with Wolverhampton University
A short documentary film about the project
Regular blog posts documenting research and creative work
Talk and Masterclass at Festival of Quilts
Criminal Quilts exhibitions
Festival of Quilts 9-12th August, Birmingham NEC.
Brewhouse Arts Centre, Burton on Trent 7 September – 27 October
Wolverhampton University 1 November 2018 – 4 January 2019
More information about the exhibitions here.
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.
