Joanne Tiffany (she/her) is an artist based in Wakefield currently studying Fine Art at Leeds Beckett
University.
Tiffany’s work, from both a political and poetic viewpoint, explores the social contract, expressive of
accepted social norms, as an invisible agreement. Whilst this purportedly offers benefits for all, the
self-same supposedly ‘inclusive’ social contract can also serve to restrict personal liberties. This is
best exemplified in issues of access which can be infuriatingly restrictive. Her work confronts the
hypocrisy within this and the inherent practices therein that disadvantage or worse still even negate
certain constituencies. Living with disability and chronic illness her multi-disciplinary practice whilst
highlighting health and wellbeing draws primarily but not exclusively upon her own lived personal
experience to be both progressive and positive.
This can be seen in recent work Idle Hands (2022), a crocheted lap blanket encompassing hidden
narratives of the history of the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. It is shown in the exhibition
Recollections May Vary at the Mental Health Museum, Wakefield. Tiffany is also an Ambassador for
the Charity ‘Outside In’ attached to the exhibition