What the Hand Remembers – exhibition

Featuring alumni from the University of Leeds, this group exhibition at Patrick Studios brings together four artists whose practices focus on making as a way of holding knowledge.

Working across sculpture, installation, painting, photography, sound and participatory practice, the exhibition looks at how memory is carried through touch, repetition, labour and ritual rather than through written records alone. At a moment when knowledge is increasingly mediated through screens and records, the exhibition returns attention to what is learned and carried through the body. 

What the Hand Remembers treats textile and fibre-based materials not as decorative or symbolic objects, but as working surfaces shaped by use. Across the works, materials are stretched, handled, repaired, marked, and worn. Burlap pulled under tension, surfaces shaped through devotional gesture, archival textiles activated through sound, and installations formed through shared presence point to memory as something that changes through contact.

The exhibition asks what the hand remembers over time and what is lost, altered, or interrupted through acts of making.

Full details can be found on the East Street Arts website.

Artists

Farwa Rizvi’s practice explores contemporary expressions of faith, memory and identity through material experimentation rooted in historical and diasporic contexts. Working across painting, photography, mixed media, and fabric installation, her work revisits ritual, gesture, and symbolism as evolving practices rather than fixed traditions. Positioned between Pakistan and the UK, Rizvi examines how belief systems, cultural memory, and embodied rituals transform across borders. Her work frames faith as lived experience held within objects, surfaces, and repeated actions, creating a dialogue between the sacred and the everyday, the past and the present. Farwa graduated with an MA Fine Art from the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies in 2023.

Alice Boot works with fibre as a site of tension, resistance, and vulnerability. Through laborious processes of deconstructing and reconstructing burlap, combined with found materials such as metal, ceramic, and wood, Boot creates sculptural forms that oscillate between fragility and force. Their practice is grounded in touch and physical labour, drawing from coastal landscapes and the material decay shaped by natural forces. By forcing soft fibre into dialogue with rigid, damaged objects, Boot explores entanglement, endurance, and the unstable balance between destruction and care. Alice graduated with a BA Fine Art from the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies in 2025.

Laura Joan Smith’s practice investigates memory, collecting, and personal archives through mapping, sound, and material research. Working with found objects, recorded audio, and archival methodologies, Smith examines how memories can be preserved, categorised, and reactivated. Her work often blurs the boundaries between personal and collective memory, inviting audiences to listen and engage with collected narratives. Within What the hand remembers, Smith’s practice anchors the exhibition’s interest in documentation and the ways meaning accumulates through acts of gathering and recording.

Saba Siddiqui’s multimedia practice centres the lived experiences of Global Majority communities in the UK, exploring notions of home, identity, and belonging through immersive installation. Drawing from theatre set design, film, and social research, her work is characterised by bold colour, pattern, texture, and sensory engagement. Siddiqui’s practice is deeply informed by her commitment to decolonial methodologies, accessibility, and relational aesthetics, often incorporating collaborative and community-led processes. Her installations function as spaces of encounter which invite participation, dialogue and shared reflection while foregrounding underrepresented narratives within cultural institutions.

 

Venue

Patrick Studios
East Street Arts
St Mary's Lane
LS9 7EH, Leeds

Opening times

What the Hand Remembers launches on Monday 26 January, from 6:30 pm until 8 pm. 

The exhibition is then open from 27 January to 13 February at the following times:

10 am until 4 pm, Monday to Thursday
12 pm until 5 pm, Saturday and Sunday

Feature image

Farwa Rizvi, کیسے ملتا ہے خدا؟ (How do you find God?), 2026. Photograph. Image courtesy of the artist.