Sofie Layton is an artist, researcher and facilitator who has worked nationally and internationally for over 30 years. Her most recent research practice explores the interface between artist, patient and clinical landscapes. Interweaving lived experience with remediated medical data, she examines how the human story is entangled with the medical. Previous commissions include installations ‘Bedside Manners’ (Evelina Children’s Hospital 2012) and ‘Making the Invisible Visible’ (Great Ormond Street Hospital 2015-2016) exhibited internationally. ‘The Heart of the Matter’ (2016-2018), a national touring exhibition funded by Wellcome and ACE, addressed the medical, experiential and poetic dimensions of the heart. In ‘Does AI Care?’ (2023), commissioned by the London Science Gallery, she worked alongside young adults in remission from cancer to probe AI’s role in contemporary medical care. Her PhD, funded by LAHP - London Arts and Humanities Partnership (AHRC), awarded in 2025, developed multiple methods of artistic remediation and translation of medical data. This was used to investigate the materialisation of pregnancy, culminating in the performative installation Loss is Mine and is Stored within this Body. She has since become a research associate on the Visual and Materials Lab which is part of the Discovery Research Platform for the Medical Humanities at Durham University (funded by the Wellcome Trust). Her current research practice extends her PhD work, further exploring the non-diagnostic use of medical data through workshops, artworks and performance.

http://www.sofielayton.co.uk

http://www.insidetheheart.org

@sofielayton

Send us a text

Explore more Breaks & Joins podcasts, on the repair of our stuff, ourselves and our communities. Subscribe to make sure you dont miss any!