Helen Antrobus is a curator and historian specialising in cultural landscapes and twentieth century political women. In 2018 she curated Represent! Voices 100 Years On at the People’s History Museum, which explored the paradigms of vote and voice in the fight for representation for women and marginalised communities.
Her work seeks to re-frame and unearth stories of women in social and political landscapes. In 2022, she curated Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Her first book, First in the Fight: Twenty Women Who Made Manchester, was published in 2019.
Twitter: @HelenAntrobus
Bethany Turner-Pemberton is a PhD researcher and Teaching Assistant at Manchester School of Art. Her PhD: Technically Fabric - Innovation in Textile Practice and Design in 20th-21st Century Manchester, investigates the contemporary textile narratives of the Greater Manchester region and considers how these stories could be told to museum audiences at Science and Industry Museum. Bethany engages with archival material in museums, businesses and personal collections and she is keen to present under researched stories from archives alongside contemporary textile materials to illustrate the ever-present culture of textiles across Greater Manchester. (Manchester Met alumnus)
Twitter: @BTP_textiles Instagram: @bethanyturnerpemberton
A Studio Called Jane is the creative outfit of Manchester-based designer and illustrator, Jane Bowyer. Jane is also the creator and curator behind Women in Print: the stories of women from the north of England, told through print and design. Women in Print puts artists at the centre of its programming, bringing a wide range of practitioners’ work to the public’s attention in cultural and educational settings. In 2019 Women in Print was the creative partner on the First in the Fight book.
Lucy Morris: My practice, as both a printmaker and a historian, means I closely work with archives frequently both for academic and visual research. The potential of traditionally written documents to be converted into a more accessible visual source of information is something that has excited me for the past two years. Whether it is taking an already visual but underused source, like the Tameside archives, or taking visual inspiration from Du Maurier’s prints in the Gaskell archive; I find using an original document to create something that will inform the public of an understudied area of history infinitely exciting. (Manchester Met alumnus)
Instagram: @lucymorris_illustration | Twitter: @LucyMorris13
Dr Alison Slater is Head of Department for Art & Performance at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Met. Alison studied textile design before undertaking her PhD, an oral history of working-class women’s dress in Lancashire, 1939-45. Her most recent work, a co-edited book for Bloomsbury, Memories of Dress: Recollections of Material Identities published in April 2023. (Manchester Met alumnus)
Maisy Summer is an Illustrator and Animator, Founder of Small Fry Collective and Lecturer at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Met. Maisy works closely with clients on projects that often have storytelling and community at their centre, with outcomes across publishing and animation, to large-scale character installations, editorial, campaigns and wallpaper design.
In collaboration with the Hat Works in Stockport Maisy has been working on an animation to re-tell the story of Elsie Plant; a suffragette, socialist and birth control activist from Stockport. Maisy has been using a mixture of archival material collaged and combined with handcrafted illustrated assets and digital drawing to bring this lesser know female narrative life. Maisy will be discussing her practice, the story of Elsie Plant, the process behind the animation and WIP scenes from the animation. (Manchester Met alumnus)
www.maisysummer.com Instagram: @maisysummer Twitter: @maisysummer_
Event branding / Graphic Design: Alessandra Mostyn (Manchester Met alumnus)
Hat Works Museum of Hatting - Curator and Museum Officer: Bronwen Simpson (Manchester Met alumnus)
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