Born in 1965, Housden studied sculpture at Falmouth and Chelsea Schools of Art before completing residencies at the British School in Rome and in Prague. She has exhibited across the UK and Europe, including the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, Nová Síñ Gallerie, Prague, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre and the 2022 Thailand Biennale in Korat. Now based in Cornwall, she continues her multidisciplinary practice including curating exhibitions and producing films on climate resilience. Housden is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Royal Society of Arts.

Torpoint Artists Collective studio 2025

After 25 years living in East London with studios in Redchurch Street E2, above a veneer shop, ACME studio in Bethnal Green, then Chisenhale Arts Place, Bow, I moved to Cornwall in 2016, and now live and work on the Tamar Estuary opposite Devonport Dock Yard. My current studio is with the Torpoint Artists Collective.

As a student studying Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art in the 1980s, I was selected for my first solo show at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol by curator Frances Morris CBE. I studied my MA in Fine Art at Chelsea School of Art, where I was awarded a Rome Scholarship at the British School at Rome. This was followed by a year living in the Czech Republic where I had a solo exhibition funded by the British Council at the Nová Síñ Gallerie in Prague. I have continued to exhibit internationally, and in 2021 my work was selected for the Thailand Biennale, Korat. My most recent solo exhibition Players was shown in the Old Morgue, Plymouth in 2023.

My studio in Chisenhale Arts Place, Bow, London 2003 – 2015

My current studio since 2016 overlooking the Tamar estuary, Cornwall

In 2017 I discovered I had a rare form of cancer in my left hand index finger called chondrosarcoma. I had to chose between amputation, removing the cancer and replacing it with a form of cement, or hollowing it out to leave a paper-thin layer of remaining bone. As I’m left handed, this finger represents creativity to me and so I opted to have it hollowed. The least invasive and optimistic option, given that bone eventually regenerates. The intensity of the graphite pencil was likely to have been the reason why my bone had pared down to eggshell, resulting in a fracture that revealed the cancerous growth. The scans fascinate me as they look so like my drawings. Deadly but somehow uplifting.

The slightest knock to my finger meant that I was unable to draw or make sculpture in the foreseeable future, so I decided to paint. I painted the remnants of my children’s toys and games, salvaged from former sculptures – barbie dresses, shoes, fantasy cars and fake sweets and chocolates, followed by the installation, Players made up of 32 paintings of chess pieces.

My arts practice has been informed by a variety of research and employment-related positions, specifically in my role as London Director for the Royal Institute of British Architects, and my current positions as the South West Director for the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and co-founder of the South West Infrastructure Partnership. 

I have curated several cross-disciplinary exhibitions with artists, architects and engineers. I co-curated Dark Waters with Peter Ackroyd on The Thames in 2009. I was the lead curator and participant in a major Arts Council funded exhibition Compulsion at St Clements Hospital, Bow in 2013. I co-curated a British Council funded exhibition Monologue Dialogue 3 at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre 2014.

As well as my arts practice, I have produced a series of films with Director Jevan Chowdhury, founder of Wind & Foster. These have included Engineering the London Underground, Engineering Happiness and Engineering Plymouth. These films have been screened at international film festivals and displayed in collections including The London Transport Museum and The Box, Plymouth. I’ve also created an exhibition Time is Running Out: help us engineer a net zero world, for the Institution of Civil Engineers, the first touring exhibition in the Institution’s 200-year history. Launched in Bristol Airport’s departure lounge in 2022, this exhibition toured museums, science centres and public spaces across the UK for two years.

My Engineering page shows how my role as an ICE director has been influenced by my arts practice.