Dr. Sarah Alford

Assistant Professor, Liberal Studies

Currently my research and practice stem from my studies in nineteenth-century natural philosophy and the ways in which botanists coped with the rapid influx of plants into Britain by promoting and inventing a new and unstable pre-Darwinian taxonomy, the Natural System, through the wide-spread dissemination of botanical illustration.

My academic research investigates how craft and design practitioners employed the Natural System in ornament and form. My artistic practice explores the way botanists depicted the vitality of plants and their uneasy demarcation at the border of life and non-life. In both realms, I primarily employ the method of material culture in which I approach craft and design objects as a lens through which to see its period in a distorted yet revelatory way. I take up critical questions posed by this dialectic of perception and corporeality but also examine the ways in which the combination of knowledge production (art + history) also repairs and re-enchants daily life.

My teaching practice includes supervising graduate students from across the range of craft genres, but mostly in textiles and jewellery. I view craft as a discourse in which the relationship between maker and material is key to understanding its transformative potential, and I believe that this conversation applies to all life/art practices. To quote of my students, who was quoting me: “Craft is a verb, not a noun.”

A smiling woman with short, wavy brown and gray hair wears large, clear-framed glasses and dangling earrings. She is dressed in a bright, floral-patterned blouse with orange, pink, and yellow colors. The background is dark, making her face and colorful clothing stand out.

Sarah has undergraduate degrees in Jewellery/Metalsmithing and Art History from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (2004) and was awarded a Fulbright to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she earned an MA in Visual and Critical Studies (2009), and MFA in studio through the department of Fiber and Material Studies (2010). She earned her PhD in Art History and Art Conservation at Queen’s University, Kingston, and was awarded the distinction of Queen’s Outstanding Humanities Thesis, (2018). 

She has exhibited across Canada, Scotland, and the United States, including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. She has published articles in the Journal of Stained Glass, Journal for Artistic Research, and Journal of Design History. Her book Art Botany in British Design Reform: 1835-1865 is available through Bloomsbury press, as part of their Cultural Histories of Design series.

Book cover for "Art Botany in British Design Reform, 1835–1865" by Sarah Alford. The cover features an ornate, stylized floral pattern with blue, green, and brown flowers and leaves on a cream background. A blue banner across the lower part of the cover displays the title and author’s name. The publisher, Bloomsbury, and the series "Cultural Histories of Design" are also noted.

Connect

sarah.alford@auarts.ca