Crafted with Pride: queer craft and activism - LGBTQ+ History Month lecture

From handmade clothing and protest banners to radical self-published zines and manifestos, there is a long history of using craft and DIY processes to explore identities, bring communities together, and encourage social and political change. Yet, many of these histories remain undocumented and are insufficiently researched. From histories of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt to the Museum of Transology, this talk will explore introduce a range of handmade objects and explore the range of connections between craft and queerness, particularly in a British context.

Dr Daniel Fountain is Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Exeter. Daniel is an artist, curator, and historian of modern and contemporary art with specialisms in gender, sexuality, LGBTQ+ culture, and visual activism. They are editor of Crafted with Pride: Queer Craft and Activism in Contemporary Britain (University of Chicago Press and Intellect Books, 2023), and author of the forthcoming monograph Queer Crafts: Material Practices and the Making of Identity (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025).