Art, photography, poetry

Sulter participated in The Thin Black Line exhibition, curated by Lubaina Himid at the ICA in London in 1985.^[8] The exhibition displayed the art of Black and Asian women artists, re-centring the visibility of Black and Asian art in the British art scene. Sulter and Himid worked closely together on projects, curating and exhibiting their work together. Maud Sulter worked across photography, film, installation, collage and photomontage, sound and performance. Her work typically referenced historical and mythical subjects. Her photography was exhibited across the UK and internationally, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1987, the Johannesburg Biennale (1995),^[9] and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2003. She received a number of awards and residencies, among them the British Telecom New Contemporaries Award 1990 and the Momart Fellowship at Tate Liverpool,^[10] also in 1990.

As well as writing about art history and curating many exhibitions,^[11] Sulter was a poet and playwright. Her publications works include the poetry collections As a Blackwoman (1985; her poem of the same title won the Vera Bell Prize from ACER, the Afro-Caribbean Education Resource, the previous year);^[6] Zabat: Poetics of a Family Tree (1989); and Sekhmet: A Decade or So of Poems (2005). Her play, Service to Empire (2002), was inspired by the background of former Ghana head of state Jerry Rawlings.^[1] Two poems by Sulter are accessible online: "Gone But Not Forgotten"^[12] and "If Leaving You".^[13] Sulter's writings are available at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, Glasgow Women's Library, the Stuart Hall Library, London, Poetry Society, London, Tate Library, London, and many other libraries.

Sulter was Principal Lecturer in Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan University, from 1992 to 1994.^[14][3] lectured at a number of other English universities, and curated her own and other artists' work at British galleries since the mid-1980s, including at The People's Gallery in London, Tate Liverpool, Touchstones Rochdale, Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow, with Himid at the Elbow Room in London and at her own gallery, Rich Women of Zurich in London.^[15]

Art works

Blackwomen's Creativity Project

Sulter worked with Sheba Feminist Publisher's Collective, starting in 1982.^[32] As the collective's only Black woman writer at the time, Sulter recognized an increasing need for writing tailored to Black women. She co-founded the Blackwomen's Creativity Project in the early 1980s with Ingrid Pollard.^[32] The magazine created a variety of content ranging from "hair braiding, poetry and performance".^[32] She created her own publishing imprint, Urban Fox Press, releasing a new edition of her first collection of poetry, As a Blackwoman, along with her second poetry collection, Zabat: Poetics of a Family Tree, both in 1989.

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Books by Sulter

• As a Blackwoman, Poems 1982–1985. Urban Fox Press. 1985. ISBN 9781872124001.
• Zabat: Poetics of a Family Tree. Urban Fox Press. 1989. ISBN 9781872124056.
• Passion: Discourses on Blackwomen's Creativity. An Urban Fox Press cultural studies imprint. Urban Fox Press. 1990. ISBN 9781872124315.
• Necropolis. Urban Fox Press. 1990. ISBN 9781872124063.
• Service to Empire. A19. 2002. ISBN 978-0954330200.
• Sekhmet: A Decade or So of Poems. Dumfries and Galloway Cultural Services. 2005. ISBN 978-0946280698.

Books about Sulter

• Echo: Works by Women Artists 1850-1940 (Exhibition book). London, England: Tate Gallery Publications. 1991. ISBN 9781854370815.
• Cherry, Deborah (2015). Maud Sulter: Passion. London, England: Altitude Editions. ISBN 978-1-906908-36-2.
• Lepine, Ayla; Lodde, Matt; McKever, Rosalind (2015). Revival: Memories, Identities, Utopias. Courtauld Books Online. ISBN 978-1-907485-04-6. In the section by Deborah Cherry, "The Ghost Begins by Coming Back: Revenants and Returns in Maud Sulter's Photomontages"