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The samples of old needlework are said to be Yugoslavian, while the other two images show the work of recent art school graduates.

Kiri Abraham's Text Dress (2006), an embroidered textile made of thread, glue and buttons, forms part of a larger installation exploring her grandmother's travels during the 1930s to Palestine and India, where she worked as a nanny for military families. The fragile dress represents both the clothes worn by the children she looked after, says the artist, and "the haze through which we view the past".

Mandy Owen's Deadly Nightshade (2004) depicts lungs made out of used and unused cigarette filters and was inspired by her struggle to stop smoking.

She had already created a much more soothing collage of human lungs from leaves, but reflecting on the damage tobacco had done to her mother and was now doing to her led her to produce a work she believes to be "attractive yet repulsive, mirroring the struggle you have when you are a smoker trying to quit".

Send suggestions for this series on the treasures, oddities and curiosities owned by universities across the world to: matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com.