For this week's Visiting Artist's Talk at the University of Leeds we welcome fine art alumna Sarah-Joy Ford.

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. A deep material investment in surface pattern design, and embellishment is part of a femme-ethical methodology that prioritises softness, emotionality, and aesthetic preoccupation.

She is a graduate of the University of Leeds (BA Fine Art, 2015), The School of the Damned (MA Fine Art, 2017) and Manchester Metropolitan University (MA Textile Practice, 2018). 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. This research examined how the loving attention and protective qualities of the quilt offer a reparative site for investing in lesbian archives inherently bound to a history of injury.

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 solo show dykeland at The Whitaker (Rossendale) opens on 4 June and runs to 21 September 2025.

Her work has been widely commissioned, including for A Tall Order at Touchstones Rochdale (2023); Un-Defining Queer at The Whitworth Manchester (2022), Manchester Science Park, (2022-2023) and Elizabeth Gaskell’s House (2024).

Her work is held in numerous collections including The Whitworth, The Pitt Rivers Museum, Soho House Global Art Collection and The ONE Archives Los Angeles. Her writing has been published across a range of publications including Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, MAI: Feminist Visual Cultures and TEXTILE: cloth and culture.

She is a member of PROXIMITY Collective and a member of the editorial board of The Journal of Lesbian Studies.

About the Visiting Artists’ Talks series

The Visiting Artist’s Talk (VAT) series hosts talks by an exciting range of arts practitioners from around the world every Monday afternoon 2–4pm during teaching weeks.

All of our talks are compulsory for our Fine Art students but are also open to anyone else who would like to join us.

Full details about this week's talk including venue information.

Find out about other talks in the series.