A Feminist Reclamation of Folk

About

CLASS DESCRIPTION

The Feminist Lecture Program is proud to welcome back Folklorist, Artist and Lecturer extraordinaire Lucy J Wright for this unique insight into the world of Feminist Folk; 

“Traditions are good for us. Coming together with others, marking the passage of time, celebrating rites of passage—in our increasingly secular society, these things can be key factors in a life well lived.

Women were historically neglected by the early folklorists, who tended to privilege male informants and more spectacular, public practices that typically sidelined women. However, this is not to say that women didn't have traditions of their own, or that they did not play an important role—if overlooked—in the history of the English folk movement.

As an artist and researcher who has spent more than ten years exploring lesser-known folk arts and customs—especially those led by women and other marginalised people—I’m aware that the benefits of tradition might feel counterintuitive to many of us raised in the times and places that we were. Traditions are sometimes presented and enforced as a kind of straitjacket, tightly laced, to hold us down, keep us in our places. But traditions shouldn’t be dogmatic or suffocating. They should be infinitely stretchy and expansive, like gentle creative prompts—springboards for imagination and connection, which invite us to join in, join together and make things our own. 

In this presentation, I’ll talk about some of my recent projects, ‘Dusking’ and ‘Hedge Morris Dancing’, which have sought to enact a more inclusive invitation to participate in seasonal folk customs, particularly for those who are currently excluded from the mainstream spaces and narratives of English folklore. We'll discuss what we need to do to ensure that the traditions—of care, of equity and interspecies kinship—we're passing to the next generation and we’ll also look at my recently updated ‘Folk is a Feminist Issue’ manifesta, a thirteen-point call to action for a more progressive folk agenda.”

ABOUT OUR LECTURER

Lucy Wright (she/her) is an artist based in Leeds, UK. Her practice sits at the intersection of folklore and activism, often using as source material her 10+ years of cited research into lesser-known contemporary and female-led folk customs.

Believing that present understanding of ‘folklore’—including its current resurgence in popularity—is often both limiting and exclusionary, her work is concerned with exploring folk as an agent for resistance and change—speaking to the culture we create for ourselves and its radical potential. Via her ongoing interventions in and with existing folk practices, and playful invitations to participation —especially to those currently sidelined/excluded from the narratives and ‘territories’ of folk (incl. e.g. rural places, public spaces and a sense of shared national heritage)—her work asks, ‘what are the new traditions—of care, of equity and interspecies kinship—we need for living together on our broken planet?’

Following a stint as the lead singer in BBC Folk Award-nominated act, Pilgrims' Way, Wright received a Vice Chancellor’s scholarship from Manchester School of Art for her PhD before becoming a Visiting Research Fellow in Folklore at University of Hertfordshire in 2019. Recent activities include residencies at Analogue Farm and Morning Boat, Jersey; solo shows at Field System, Devon; Portico Library, Manchester and South Square, Bradford; group shows at Leeds Art Gallery and Compton Verney and features in Sunday Times Style, Caught by the River and Katherine May’s Clearing. Commissions include from the National Waterways Museum, Marchmont House, Daiwa Foundation and Meadow Arts, and in 2025 she will be speaking at the British Academy and as part of art critic, Claire Bishop's 'Ancestral Avant-gardes' at Manchester School of Art.

INSTAGRAM: @lucy_j_wright