Isabel Sperry

(Graduate Research Assistant 2023-2024)

Hi y’all! My name is Isabel (she/her), and I am a Masters student in VCS at SAIC. I grew up in Macomb, a rural university town in west central Illinois. As a ceramic artist and researcher with a background in English Literature, my work is rooted in queer theory, craft, and language.

I enrolled in the project in fall of ‘23 because I think it is both an amazing hands-on experience for my own art and a hugely important thing for our community at large. As a queer woman from a rural area, I had not been in conversation with queer elders before, and was lacking a strong queer community of any kind.

I now have the immense honor of being the SAIC graduate research assistant for the project. My year with the project so far has greatly influenced my academic interests, but more importantly has helped me foster a rich and loving queer community in Chicago.