Open Archive: A Quilter’s Guide to the Lesbian Archive

We welcome artist Sarah-Joy Ford for a virtual tour of the lesbian archive at GWL for this special Open Archive event. Sarah-Joy will take us on a journey through objects, ephemera, and histories that have inspired her artistic research, and speak about the joys of exploring lesbian history at GWL.

Open Archive: A Quilter’s Guide to the Lesbian Archive, Wednesday 14th April, 6pm to 7.30pm, Online

As a quilt maker, Sarah-Joy is particularly interested in lesbian visual culture, in the images and symbols used to communicate and create identity. We will learn about the imagery that reappears across the pages, patches and badges in the lesbian archive including amazon warriors, Sappho, and the labrys. We will also hear about some of the artworks she has made in response to the collection which will be on show at HOME Gallery in Manchester.

Sarah-Joy Ford is an Artist, Post Graduate Researcher and Associate Lecturer at Manchester School of Art. Ford works with textiles to explore the complexities and pleasures of queer community, histories and archives.

Her PhD research explores quilt making as an affective methodology for making re-visioning lesbian archival material. 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 and marginalization. See her work here.

“The Lesbian Avengers – We Recruit!” – Lesbian Avengers T-Shirt, GWL collection

This is one of our “attend” events this Spring!

Event Outline

1 hour talk/tour of the lesbian archive with a 30 minute discussion

6pm: Welcome and Introduction

6.05pm: Sarah-Joy Ford gives us a virtual tour of the Lesbian Archive and introduces us to her work

7pm: Questions from the audience

Please note that the talk will be recorded but the recording will stop before the Q and A.

Booking

This event is now fully booked.

The event is free and open to all. To attend, please book below and we will share an email invitation with you.  If you would like to make a donation to Glasgow Women’s Library, you can do so here. Please note that booking will close on Tuesday 13th April and you will receive an email invitation a few days before the event.

Accessibility

This session takes place via an online video call link. If you would like to attend, please book below and we will share an email invitation along with simple and straight forward instructions on how this will work. If you have any concerns about how this will work for you, please do get in touch and we’ll do all we can to support you in joining the session.

An automated live transcript using Otter.ai is available during this event. We also have a small amount of funding available to provide live captioning through Stagetext for some of our Spring events. Stagetext captioning is provided in-person and is therefore more accurate. Please get in touch with Emily on emily.ilett@womenslibrary.org.uk at least 3 weeks before the event if this would be helpful to you and we’ll work to arrange this. See here for upcoming events where live captioning with Stagetext is arranged.