May

M’aider II 

Day

“Folk is the stuff we make, do and think for ourselves—and the radical potential of these things.”

—excerpt from ’Folk is a Feminist Issue’ manifesta

About Lucy Wright

Lucy Wright works across visual art, performance, and critical writing to explore the spaces where folklore, feminism and cultural participation meet. Her projects often emerge from years of study into under-recognised and female-led traditions, especially those associated with her own working-class upbringing in the north—resulting in artworks that serve both as invitations and provocations. 

Concerned that the current resurgence of folk interest often hangs on exclusionary ideas from the past, her work explores and reframes folk as a critical agent for contemporary resistance, speaking to the culture we create for ourselves and its radical potential. Through ongoing interventions in and with existing folk practices, and the playful invention of incisive new ones—Wright’s work encourages viewers to reimagine what kind of traditions we need to create today, for living together on a divided planet

Recent activities include 'Dusking' at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Timespan (Scotland); solo shows at Portico Library (Manchester) and Field System (Devon); group shows at Bloc Projects (Sheffield), Leeds Art Gallery and Haarlem Artspace / Kristian Day Gallery (Wirksworth, Derbyshire), residencies at Hospitalfield, Morning Boat (Jersey) and the Hugo Burge Foundation and speaking engagements at the British Academy and Claire Bishop’s ‘Ancestral Avant-gardes’ at Manchester School of Art. Her work has been featured in Sunday Times Style and Weird Walk and with filmmaker Jonny Randall, she was winner of ‘Best in Folk’ at the 2025 Offbeat Film Festival.

Lucy 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!  

Forthcoming projects include Our Wic, a major national commission from Create Berwick / Arts&Heritage, a curated event at the Mildmay Club (London) and hopefully her first book!

'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.'

—Kirsteen McNish, Caught by the River

‘…engaging, witty, pointed – everything I was hoping for!’

—Claire Bishop, Ancestral Avant-gardes

'mainstay of a scene aiming to remove folk from male, pale and stale hands and return to them to the people'

—Kate Spicer, Sunday Times Style

REVIEWS + CITATIONS

green vector art
Coyote sculpture by Lucy Wright PhD, Artist Leeds UK

RECENT RITES + RIOTS

RECENT RITES + RIOTS

Yorkshire Sculpture Park | October 2025

Dusking

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For a limited time only…

May Folk Shop

For all your Maying needs!

I’ve got artist editions, prints, one-of-a-kind handmade keychains, T-shirts, stickers and of course, authentic Yorkshire witch cakes!

Every purchase helps to support my practice—and makes me do a happy morris dance!