Foundling | 2025

London’s ‘Foundling Hospital’ (now a museum) was set up to house abandoned children in the 1700’s. Illness, desertion and rape were among the many reasons mothers could not look after their babies, so they would be brought to the hospital for care.

‘Tokens’, such as a piece of the mother’s clothing would be placed with the child as an identifier, in the hope that she would one day be able to return. These fabric tokens inspired this hanging work; exploring maternal connection, compassion and loss through interweaving threads and the initials of a mother and child noted in one of the log books of the hospital.