Biography
Bec Wonders (b. Sweden) is a ceramic artist, illustrator, and researcher whose practice explores the intersections of material culture, feminist historiography and visual language. Naturally interdisciplinary, her work celebrates the cross-pollination of archival research, women’s storytelling and European folk art.
Wonders earned a PhD in Feminist Print History from the Glasgow School of Art (2021) and has held a Research Associate position in the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford. She has taught and lectured at the Institute of Historical Research, the Cambridge School of Art, University College London, Tate Britain, Leipzig University and many others. Her research has been presented at international conferences including the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing; the Women in Publishing Conference and Art Libraries Society.
Wonders has written several academic journal articles and book chapters (scroll down to CV for a full list). She is the founder of the independent feminist digital archive Frauenkultur and co-founder of the Vancouver Women’s Library. As an illustrator, she has produced commissioned work for UN Women, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the European Network of Migrant Women.
Now based in London, Wonders continues to develop a research-led ceramic practice that integrates archival inquiry, humour, and feminist critique. She works multilingually in English, German, and Swedish.
Artist Statement
My practice examines the intersection of material culture, mythology, and feminist historiography through the medium of ceramics. Working primarily in sgraffito and illustrative surface design, I engage with the traditions of mottoware and European folk art to explore how visual language preserves and transforms collective memory. Drawing upon motifs from ancient proverbs and moral instructions, I reinterpret the ceramic surface as a site for materialising women’s authorship.
Now living and working in London, with an international background, I am invested in the cultural transmission and translation of moral belief systems and meaning-making. Using archival research and narrative illustration, I treat the ceramic form as a medium for layered storytelling where text and image combine to articulate playful domestic wisdoms. At its core, my work is a practice of archiving inherited knowledge through humour and symbolic decoration.
Beyond ceramics and illustration, I facilitate educational spaces for exploring feminist print history and print ephemera. Inspired by the history of feminist archival practices, I view engagement with material sources as the basis for intergenerational continuity. Through participatory workshops and lectures, I provide opportunities for independent discovery and ensure that women’s intellectual labor remains visible.
Both my artistic and social practices emphasise the material records of storytelling as intrinsic to the endurance of past, present and future collective memory.
CV
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PhD | 2021 | Glasgow School of Art
‘Please Say More’: mediating conflict through letter-writing in British second wave feminist periodicals, 1970-1990
Read Here
Supervised by Prof. Susannah Thompson, Dr. Marianne Greated, Dr. Deborah JacksonMPub | 2018 | Simon Fraser University
Counterpublics Revisited: a case study of the Vancouver Women’s Library
Supervised by Associate Professor Dr. John MaxwellBA | 2016 | University of British Columbia
Philosophy MajorBFA | 2015 | Emily Carr University of Art and Design
Visual Arts Major -
Love Your Enemy? Tracing the Transmission of Political Lesbianism from the US to the UK, 1970-80
Institute of Historical Research | Women’s History Seminar | 2024Keynote: The Women in Print Movement
ETCETERAS: Feminist Festival of Design and Publishing | 2023Dear Sister: Mediating Feminist Conflict Before the Internet
FUTURESS | Feminist Lecture Series | 2022
Watch hereComplicated Sisterhood: Negotiating Socialist Feminism in the Second Wave Periodicals Red Rag and Scarlet Women
University College London | Women’s Liberation SIG | 2021Networks of Conflict and Liberation: What Second Wave Feminist Periodicals Can Tell Us About Woman-Controlled Communication Infrastructures
University of Oxford | Women, Gender and Culture Seminar Series | 2021The Women in Print Movement: A Brief History of Feminist Publishers and Political Women’s Presses During the 1970s and 1980s
Glasgow School of Art | MLitt Art Writing | 2021Books, Periodicals and Women’s Archives: A Brief History of Second Wave Feminist Print Culture
Glasgow School of Art | Paint & Printmaking lecture series | 2021 -
Networks of Conflict and Mediation: Negotiating Socialist Feminism in the Second Wave Periodicals Red Rag and Scarlet Women
The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing, 1900-2000 | In press‘Please Say More’: Mediating Conflict Through Letter-Writing in British Second Wave Feminist Periodicals, 1970-1990
PhD Thesis | Being prepared for publication | Read HereMapping Second Wave Feminist Periodicals: Networks of Conflict and Counterpublics, 1970–1990
Art Libraries Journal | 45(3), 106-113 | Read Here -
A Space to Debate Socialist Feminism: Mediating Conflict Through Serialised Letter-Writing in Second Wave Feminist Periodicals
Polytechnic of Turin, Italy | Communication, Capitalism and Critique: Critical Media Sociology in the 21st Century | 2022Women’s Webs: Second Wave Periodicals as Feminist Networks
University of Amsterdam | The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing | 2022Feminist Publications in Movement: Developing a Model for a Feminist Publishing Circuit
The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing | Munich | 2021
Roundtable with Gail Chester, Wangui Wa Goro and Magda OldziejewskaBehind the Veil: Mapping Feminist Periodicals, 1970-1990
University of Glasgow | Art Libraries Society 50th Anniversary Conference | 2019Dear Sisters: The Role of Letters in British Second Wave Feminist Periodicals
University of Reading | Women in Publishing Conference | 2019Unravelling Feminist Periodicals
Royal College of Art | National Association of Fine Art Education Conference | 2019 -
Counter Print: A Discussion About the Alternative Feminist Art Press
Tate Britain | Women in Revolt: Radical Acts, Contemporary Resonances | 2024Thinking Through the British Feminist Magazine Spare Rib
Cambridge School of Art | Fashion Communication and Branding BA | 2023Feminist Sci-Fi Drawing Workshop for East London Rape Crisis Centre
The Nia Project | Young Women & Girls Feminist Funday | 2022Difficult Sisterhood: Mediating Feminist Conflict Through Letter-Writing
Leipzig University | Feminism is a Battlefield | 2022Women’s History in Times of Crises
FiLiA Portsmouth | Conversation | 2021
• Co-presented with Dr. Natalya Vince
• Launch of co-produced podcast “Making Feminist History Visible: An International Conversation About Women’s Archives and Records” -
Frauenkultur Archive
Founder | 2020
Explore the archiveThe Vancouver Women’s Library
Co-founder | 2017 -
European Network of Migrant Women
Typeset and Design | Info Sheet on Sexual Exploitation | 2022UN Women
Head Illustrator | Youth Journey to Generation Equality Forum | 2020Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
Live Illustrator | Gender and Energy Seminar Series | 2020European Network of Migrant Women
Typeset and Design | Best Practice Principles of Assistance to Migrant Female Victims of Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation | 2020UN Global Compact
Live Illustrator | How Businesses Can support Women During Covid-19 in Africa | 2020