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.
Final Exhibition of the tour
Llantarnam Grange Art Centre, Cwmbran 5th February-2nd April 2022
View the online exhibition here
Find case studies of individual women here.
The Criminal Quilts book is an 80 page illustrated book of the project, covering the history of the photographs and the creative work inspired by them. The book is available here.
Visit the shop to buy cards, original artworks and postcards as well as the book.
Supported by Arts Council England 2019
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
Blog posts documenting research and creative work
Talk and Masterclass at Festival of Quilts
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 