Future Folk Archetypes
“Folk is the stuff we make, do and think for ourselves—and the radical potential of these things.”
What if ‘folklore’ wasn’t just a niche interest, but a potent agent for resistance and change?
About Lucy
Lucy Wright 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.
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.
She is a ‘hedge morris dancer’, author of the ‘Folk is a Feminist Issue’ manifesta, and originator of ‘Dusking’, a 100% invented tradition and annual participatory project for anyone who has ever wanted to dance the sun down!
'a vital, questioning, vibrant force of nature...Wright is an ascendant star who seems entirely and univocally herself, no matter where and with whom she practices. '
—Caught by the River, Kirsteen McNish
'mainstay of a scene aiming to remove folk from male, pale and stale hands and return to them to the people'
—Sunday Times Style, Kate Spicer
'I love the work of Lucy Wright, an artist who draws on folklore and activism to suggest new ways of interacting with the year...[and] connecting with the tradition in your own space and time.'
—Katherine May (author of Wintering: the power of rest and retreat in difficult times)
Recent rites + rituals!
Recent rites + rituals!
Exhibition
‘Oss Girls
Solo exhibition | Field System, Devon | May 2024
Hobby horses and horse girls; folklore, fetish + consent…
This exhibition takes as its starting point the folk archetype of the hobby horse, drawing on customs from Cornwall, Lincolnshire and Kent.
While the traditional hobby horse is generally viewed as a carnivalesque figure of fun whose wild antics help to temporarily suspend the norms and hierarchies of everyday life, legend suggests that women who are caught under the horse’s skirts become pregnant, gesturing towards a peculiarly predatory heteronormativity.
At the same time, ‘hobby horse’ is one of several names used to disparage girls and young women with a keen interest in horses (AKA ‘horse girls’), who are bullied for their social awkwardness and presumed erotic attachment to their equine companions.
What if the hobby horse was femme? What if ‘horse girls’ were celebrated, not mocked? How might folk practices of all kinds help us to navigate changing attitudes towards gender and intimacy?
Field System, Ashburton: 1-18 May, PV 1 May, 6-9pm
Sun Up!
May morning performance (Unite and Unite)
Film by Jonny Randall | Soundtrack by Lunatraktors.
Filmed at Druid’s Temple, Yorkshire, 2024
Photo by Leonie Freeman
Hedge morris dancing is for those of us who don’t have, or can’t be with a group of morris siblings, on May morning, but who still feel the call to dance up the sun!
—’Join the hedge morris dancing revolution!’, Tradfolk
