Joanne Masding

I make work to think about relationships to objects: ideas of worth, ownership and production, and how they are absorbed by bodies and through technological interfaces. My recent practice is a collection of artifacts and characters I use to think about what objects are and how we know them. I want to know things with my body rather than know about things in my head.

In 2025 I made solo exhibition The Moveable Scene of the Page at Bluecoat, Liverpool, as part of their season on artist writing. Through sculpture, print and drawing, the works in the exhibition think about the act of speaking and understanding, and use processes of translation as methods for knowing the material world.

In 2024 I launched my first novel; a book as artwork. Body of Pieces is published by Bobo Books, edited by Jess Chandler and distributed by Antenne Books. It was announced with a debut performance made for TACO!, Thamesmead in March 2024.

Recent exhibitions include: The Moveable Scene of the Page, Bluecoat, Liverpool (2025) Tree and Leaf, Division of Labour, Salford (2023), Copy Out a New Shoot, Modern Painters New Decorators, Loughborough (2022) (solo); My Kid Could've Done That, Holborne Museum, Bath (2021); In the Peaceful Dome, Bluecoat, Liverpool (2017-18); Touche Eclat, Workplace, Gateshead (2017); Plaster Ghost Finger Cast, The New Art Gallery, Walsall (2017) (solo); image music text, IMT Gallery, London (2016); stuffs wander off, a shape steps in, Two Queens, Leicester (2016) (solo). I have undertaken residencies with organisations including: 501 Artspace, Chongqing, China, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin, Ireland, Research and Cultural Collections at University of Birmingham, Leicestershire Museums Collections. Permanent commission Flimsy Signals, made for developers Bruntwood, launched in summer 2018, and 'Make Future Village History', a public artwork for a new housing development in Cardiff, with Persimmon Homes and Studio Response launched in 2021. I was awarded a fellowship with John Feeney Charitable Trust in 2016-17 and in 2020 I received by nomination an Artist Award from Henry Moore Foundation.

I initiated and run Studio Outlet, which sells things made by artists.

I am co-director of Modern Clay, a co-operative ceramics studio in Birmingham, where I make work, undertake ceramics research and production for artists, and use the therapeutic benefits of working with clay in partnership with local charities supporting vulnerable groups.