Factory International

Suzanne Lacy, Vivianne Miedema and Ali Riley

A film playing on a screen in the exhibition, showing five panels displaying Ali Riley Meg Madison Viv Miedema Katie Zelem and Alyssa Thompson
Art / Football 

About the artwork

What do women (footballers) want? This is the question at the heart of a new five-channel film by pioneering American artist Suzanne Lacy, developed in collaboration with two icons of the game: Manchester City and Netherlands forward Vivianne Miedema and Angel City Football Club and New Zealand captain Ali Riley. Together, they lead a bold inquiry into how women footballers impact society’s attitudes toward women – and how cultural perceptions and practices shape the way we see players and the sport itself.

Active since the early 1970s, Suzanne Lacy is a leading figure in socially engaged art. Her groundbreaking performances, installations and videos have addressed issues ranging from sexual violence and incarceration to ageing and labour. In 1991, she coined the term 'New Genre Public Art' to define an activist form of art that plays out in public space and comes from direct conversations with communities.

In this new work, Lacy turns her lens on football as a space where gender is expressed and society’s attitudes are reflected. Taking a question-driven approach, she filmed conversations with professional players and grassroots women’s teams in Manchester and Los Angeles. The film interrogates the very architecture of the sport: Who is it built for? Who is excluded? And what might it look like if reimagined entirely from the ground up by women?

Rather than offering answers or utopian alternatives, the film creates space for players to collectively reflect on their lived experiences – from  workplace dynamics to relationships with fans – and the complicated visibility of women’s football within a male-dominated industry. The work reframes football as a powerful tool for rethinking how gender operates in public life. What do Women (Footballers) Want? has been realised with Manchester filmmaker Mark Thomas, a trusted collaborator Lacy has worked with repeatedly over the past ten years. Others in the film are: ACFC players Alyssa Thompson, Madison Hammond, and Katie Zelem, and Man City Women’s Academy players Aiofe Colbert-Martin and Hannah Stengert.

Suzanne Lacy stood behind the camera filming Alyssa Thompson

Behind the scenes with Angel City Football Club’s Alyssa Thompson for 'What Do Women Footballers Want?'. Photo Joana Cardozo © Suzanne Lacy Courtesy the artist.

About the collaborators

Suzanne Lacy

Suzanne Lacy is a Los Angeles-based artist and a pioneer of socially engaged public performance art. Her installations, videos, and performances deal with sexual violence, rural and urban poverty, incarceration, labor, and aging. Lacy’s large-scale projects span the globe, including England, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Ireland, and the US. In 2019, she had a career retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, followed by substantial exhibitions at the Queens Museum, The Whitworth Gallery, and The Manchester Art Gallery, in a 2019 project that spanned six years.  Uncertain Futures, explored intersectional issues on paid and unpaid work through the lens of women over 50, focusing on gender, age, race, disability, and class and its final exhibition presents the concluding element of an immense collaborative work combining art, research, and activism. A film by Lacy and Mark Thomas, Soup Inc, was exhibited at the Manchester Art Gallery. She is a professor at the Roski School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California and a resident artist at 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica -CA.

Ali Riley

Ali Riley is a professional footballer who plays as a defender for Angel City Football Club of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). Born in the United States, she represents the New Zealand Women's National Team. She captains both her club and national teams. As a collegiate athlete, she captained the Stanford soccer team to two NCAA semi-finals and one final. Ali is a Los Angeles native and content creator.

Vivianne Miedema

Vivianne Miedema is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a forward for Women's Super League club Manchester City and the Netherlands national team. She previously played for Arsenal, Bayern Munich, and SC Heerenveen. Miedema is a co-author of Vivianne voetbalt, a series of children's comic books featuring her experiences in football. In 2019, she became an ambassador of War Child, a charity supporting children in war zones and in 2021 she joined Common Goal a community working with young people.

SUZANNE LACY sitting down wearing a dark blue shirt, looking at the camera. The background is grey.
VIVIANNE MIEDEMA wearing a white football shirt stood in front of a grey background, smiling.
Footballer Ali Riley

Football, City. Art, United.

Multiple floating soccer balls inside a green room with white goalpost markings on the walls. The perspective and reflections create an illusion of depth, making it appear as if the balls are suspended in mid-air.
Football meets art in this major new exhibition of brand-new works made in collaboration between legendary footballers and contemporary artists.
Find out more →
Sign up ↓