Our project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and based at The University of the Arts London and Lancaster University, is the first historical study of the Victorian hand. Hands were one of the most important bodily signifiers of identity in the nineteenth century, and Victorians were obsessed with them, thinking and writing about them, painting, drawing, and photographing them, and casting, modelling, and displaying them. We combine our historical findings with creative practice, such as workshops, exhibitions and film screenings, to explore the meaning of the hand today.