Anne Tallentire

These works were often collaborative, with Ross contributing to the establishment both of the seminal Women's Postal Art Event and Sister Seven. The culminating work of her career and life was Anniversary – an act of memory: solo, collective and multi-lingual recitations from memory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a 5-year extended performance work which involved the recitation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by heart. Ross also worked in video, drawing, installation, and text.

• Name — Monica Ross • Born — 26 November 1950 • Birthplace — Lancashire, England • Died — 14 June 2013 • Place of death — Brighton and Hove, England • Education — University of Reading • Spouse — Bernard Mills • Website — monicaross.org

Monica Ross was born in Lancashire, England, on 26 November 1950.

Ross began her career as a feminist artist and organiser. She took an active role in mounting collective initiatives such as Feministo: Representations of the Artist as Housewife, a 1977 women's postal art event, and Fenix, a 1978–1980 touring project. In 1980, she co-founded Sister Seven, a distribution network for poster art and shows held in churches, libraries, peace camps, and on the street. The culminating work of her career and life was Anniversary – an act of memory: solo, collective and multi-lingual recitations from memory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an extended performance work which involved the recitation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, learnt by heart. Launched by Ross in 2008, the thirty articles were intended to be delivered in sixty instalments to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The sixtieth and final recital took place at the 23rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on 14 June 2013. On the same day she died in a hospice in Hove, only a few weeks after being diagnosed with cancer.

Ross began teaching in 1985. Her academic positions included Senior Lecturer on Fine Art at London's Saint Martins School of Art (now Central Saint Martins) from 1985 to 1990, and supervisor of the Critical Fine Art Practice course at that school from 1990 to 1998. She was a guest professor at the Institut für Kunst in Kontext (Universität der Künste, Berlin) in 2004 and an Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Fellow in Fine Art at Newcastle University from 2001 to 2004. In 2014, the year following her death, a digital archive of Ross's work from the 1970s through 2013 was acquired by the British Library, which described her as "one of the most significant feminist artists and distinguished educators of her generation".