The Victorian Hand

Emotions, embodiment and identity, past and present

During 2026 and 2027 I am project artist for The Victorian Hand, an academic project with London College of Fashion and Lancaster University. I will be exploring hand work in quilting (with The Quilters Guild) and surgery (with The Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons England) with a series of workshops in 2026 and exhibitions in 2027.

I will be focussing on sense of touch and the emotional experience of working with our hands, with an emphasis on textiles and stitch. This commission came from my Criminal Quilts project where I worked with images of women prisoners and their hands. For the Victorian Hand I will focus on makers’ hands, building on over 20 years of working with my own hands, and supporting others to discover what they can do with their hands.

I will be co-hosting six research sessions exploring project themes with The Quilters Guild and The Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons England this year and developing my own work, and group work, for the exhibitions in 2027. More about these below.

As well as the research workshops, I will be organising various opportunities to take part in making and sharing stories for this project. I plan to develop Stitching Emotions, the group project in my Mary Linwood exhibition as well as create a new collaborative artwork and plenty of opportunities to share your stories and experiences in writing or photography.

Research Workshops