Labour of Love - Final MA Design Project, 2024

Labour of Love was the final major project of my MA Design (Illustration), exploring how design, history, and politics intersect in the visual culture surrounding sex work. Approached through an intersectional feminist lens, the project examined how sex work is represented, regulated, and remembered from legal frameworks to public narratives and grassroots resistance.

I investigated both historical and contemporary imagery, looking at how sex work has been depicted across different contexts, and how these portrayals shape public understanding. Drawing on design research and personal ethics, the project questioned what it means to represent such a stigmatised and politicised subject with care, nuance, and respect.

Combining illustration, commentary, and mixed media, the work sought to navigate the contradictions and complexities of sex work as labour, producing a variety of personal visual responses. The project culminated in an exhibit in the MAD Grad Show at SHU, and the zine 'Labour of Love', which served as a proof-of-concept within this wider inquiry, capturing part of the research in a format that blends information, introspection, and image-making.