Laura Moseley is the Curator of the Women’s Art Collection and the Founder of Common Threads Press.
Laura has a BA and MA in History of Art, specialising in historical and contemporary craft practices, and has worked freelance with arts and cultural organisations including MoMu Antwerp, the Royal School of Needlework and Kettle’s Yard on projects related to art and craft history and its intersections with community and activism.
Currently based in Cambridge, Laura gives talks and works on projects around visual art and craft.
EVENT
MoMu Antwerp x Common Threads Press
Threads of Influence: The Power of Craft and Textiles Today
12 February 2026, 7.30-8.30pm
In conjunction with the exhibition ‘Embroidering Palestine’ by Rachel Dedman, this panel explored how craft and textile practices shape contemporary creativity. From heritage traditions to material innovations, we aimed to unpick the social, political and aesthetic force of textiles in today’s craft landscape.
On the panel was Christel Vesters, an Amsterdam‑based art historian, curator, and writer whose research engages with cultural history; Ferren Gipson, a British‑American art historian, artist, and cultural storyteller whose work explores material culture, politics, and identity; and Aya Haidar, a Lebanese‑British textile artist whose practice examines language, labour, displacement, and memory through culturally embedded objects.
The event was programmed and chaired by Laura Moseley, Founder of Common Threads Press, and concluded with a Q&A session.
London Art Fair: Material Innovation & The Unexpected
23 January 2026, 12-1pm
As part of the exhibition Platform 2026: The Unexpected, this discussion explored how artists are pushing the expectations and limits of what materials can do. From rethinking the potential of traditional mediums to experimenting with radical, unconventional matter, artists are expanding the vocabulary of contemporary practice and challenging how we define art.
Chaired by Laura Moseley, Curator of The Women’s Art Collection, the panel featured artists Richard McVetis and Laetitzia Campbell to share insights into experimentation, process and meaning. Together, they considered how material innovation not only shapes individual practices but also opens up new conversations between art, craft, design and audience experience.
The Sleepers
EXHIBITION
18 September 2025 - 22 February 2026
The Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College
Scenes of rest have long been a generative motif for women artists, helping them to articulate complex and differing experiences of family, health and work. This exhibition brings together a century of works across a variety of mediums: paintings, prints and textiles, including a collaborative quilt.
Taking its name from one of the three prints on display by wood engraver and painter Gwen Raverat (1885–1957), a Cambridge artist for whom the sleeping subject became an enduring theme, The Sleepers surveys works by 12 artists to explore why sleeping, dreaming and resting have been depicted by women artists. It also asks us to consider who has access to these vital moments of relief and respite.
Curated by Laura Moseley with curatorial support from Harriet Loffler. Exhibition design by Sally Coleman.
This exhibition was generously supported by East Anglia Art Fund, Cambridge Arts Society and Backstitch Cambridge.
Artists: Joke Amusan, Helen Cammock, Ann Dowker, Tracey Emin, Laura Footes, Bambou Gili, Kate Montgomery, Celia Paul, Jenny Polak, Gwen Raverat, Lucy Raverat and Nancy Willis.
Crafting Resistance: An Evening with Common Threads Press
EVENT
Tuesday 6 May 2025, 6.30-8.15pm
Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
An event with Kettle's Yard, to accompany their new exhibition Here is a Gale Warning: Art, Crisis & Survival.
Join us for a panel discussion on craft as a source of hope and survival. This panel will approach craft from the perspective of three of our authors who work with a diverse range of craft histories, chaired and programmed by Laura Moseley, Common Threads Press founder and Curator of the Women’s Art Collection.
Speakers include Gill Crawshaw (Rights Not Charity: Protest Textiles and Disability Activism, 2023), Rachel Dedman (Stitching the Intifada: Embroidery and Resistance in Palestine, 2024) and Jessica White (We Will Find Them: Arpilleras and the Political Art of Chile Under Pinochet, forthcoming 2026).
Images: Aaron McIntosh
Queer Needlework Practices of Past and Present
EVENT
Wednesday 7 February 2024, 7pm
Royal School of Needlework Live Online Talk
In this talk, craft researcher and founder of Common Threads Press, Laura Moseley, will map the different articulations of queer identity in needlework practices since the mid-20th century. By analysing fabric, colour, technique and processes of making, Laura will look at the different ways in which queer artists have deployed embroidery and quilting in their work.
Departing from the work of second-wave feminists that worked to reinstate needlework as an emblem of ‘women’s work’, Laura will discuss how textile crafts have since become a central focus for queer artists working with similar themes of inheritance, identity and memory.
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