Feminist Art Today: Who's Making It, Why It Matters, and Why It Should Be Free to See

People search these questions all the time, and I think that's a good thing. Feminist art, queer art history, and public art all raise questions worth sitting with rather than rushing past. As someone who spends most days elbow-deep in clay, translating overlooked lives into portraits people can hold, I get asked versions of these questions often. Here's how I'd answer them.

Who is making the best feminist art right now?

There is no way to answer this, and I'd be wary of anyone who claims there is, art is subjective, as is personal experience and feminism takes many different guises, our role is to not judge and, if we disagree I believe in gentle interrogation over shutting down (provided it is safe to do so, of course). Feminist art is, and always has been, made everywhere - crucially in homes and personal spaces as well as in art studios, on protest banners, in zines, public murals, and even games, like what I'm trying to do. What I look for is work that centres the people history left out, working-class women, women of colour, those within the LGBTQIA+ communities, disabled artists, and treats them as full subjects rather than footnotes. If I had to point somewhere, I'd say look at your own community first. Chances are there's someone or people near you doing exactly this kind of work, often without much recognition. That's part of why I wanted to create In Her Steps: The Card Game as something local and participatory rather than something you only see in a national museum or behind the constructs of 'the art world'.

Why is feminist art so important?

Because for most of history, the people recording it left most of us out. Feminist art matters because it corrects a record that was never actually neutral, it just pretended to be. When I started tiling my own front steps with portraits of forgotten women, I wasn't trying to make a political statement so much as answer a simple question: why didn't I know any of these names? Art that centres women, queer people, and other overlooked groups isn't a niche interest, it's a correction. It changes what children growing up nearby think is possible for people who look like them. It also just makes for better art, because it tells stories that haven't been told and broadly opens perspective.

What is the importance of free and public artworks?

Free and public art matters because a gallery wall, however welcoming, still has a threshold some people won't cross. Free entry and public installations remove that threshold entirely. When I started tiling my front steps at home, anyone walking past could stop, read a name, and learn something, no ticket, no membership, no assumption that they belonged in an art space. Even more inspiring to me, were the people who wouldn't be aware that at that moment they were engaging with art, and feminism. I love when I'm pottering in my garden and people stop to talk to me, really unlikely people who hold memories of Margate long before I was born, who tell me they have changed their normal walking route to walk past the steps, people who love that it adds some colour, that it's 'a bit different' to other front steps. I love that engagement. (Yes, I also get frustrated when I'm in a rush and want some peace when im watering my plants and have 0 social battery left :-s!) But, that's also why Her Steps: The Card Game is free to enter at Liminal Gallery (I'll even open especially for you if you cant make the opening hours - just contact me to make a time that works), it's also why full decks are available to buy so you can take them home and carry on that engagement as often as you like. Public art builds a shared visual language for a community. It tells everyone, not just people who already visit galleries, that history and creativity belong to them too.

If any of these questions got you thinking, that's the whole point. Come and find me and In Her Steps: The Card Game at Liminal Gallery in Margate, 11 to 27 July.