MMB Honorary Artist – Liz Hingley

We are delighted to welcome Liz Hingley as MMB Honorary Artist 2024-25. Liz Hingley is an artist, curator and anthropologist. Her interdisciplinary practice blends photography, sculpture, and collaborative creation to illuminate practices of belonging and belief that shape societies around the world.

MMB is particularly excited about The Sim Project, which Liz has been working on since 2017 and will be exhibited at the V&A, London 2024 Design Festival. Details of the MMB tour with Liz in October coming soon.

The SIM Project

‘People migrate from one place to another, and as they move, their bonds of love with the place they come from continue like spider webs.’

Mahide Uz, Turkish poet and workshop participant

The SIM Project gives material meaning to people’s digital archives and creates new ways to value stories of migration. It focuses on the SIM, as an international ID card and a key tool for intimate connection that unlocks ‘smartphone suitcases, to provide a portable sense of belonging.

People come together through a workshop process, which combines analogue and digital photography with jewellery making. Personal screenshots are printed onto SIM-scale glass models using a bespoke camera/darkroom system. Each participant makes one to add to the mobile collection and another to frame, keep and wear. In this way the project becomes a living, moving exhibition. 

Launching at the V&A this September, 3D printed sculptures feature hundreds of unique SIM-scale glass prints, made by people with experience of displacement across seven countries including the USA, UK, Spain, Italy and Finland over eight years. Most recently Liz ran workshops with residents of the Bibby Stockholm barge and Portland Bill.

The project is led by Liz Hingley in collaboration with a growing team. It is sponsored by 4JET glass, Counterpoints Arts is a generous partner.