Susan Stockwell: Economy, Dresses and Maps
Susan Stockwell is a British artist, she attended Sheffield Hallam University and the Royal Collage of Art. She teaches fine art as a senior lecturer at the University of East London. The artist currently lives in London. She exhibits in galleries and museums around the world, including the TATE and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Katonah Museum of Art in America and the National Museum of China in Beijing.
Pattern of the World
Susan Stockwell says she aims to create pieces considered aesthetically fascinating but that contain a political subtext. The aesthetic isn’t her main focus, instead it is what she wants to communicate through her work. Ecology, trade and post-colonial implications are among the themes that most interest the artist. The artist creates artworks using disposable objects that are normally thrown away, reuse is an integral part of her creative process and this choice has been conditioned by her mother. Many are the works made by the artist with recycled materials, an example is Pattern of the World made by old models of tailoring stained with tea and coffee to create the silhouettes of continents. The intrinsic reference is to the colonial past of countries such as Great Britain and the Netherlands, whose economy was based on the trade of tea and coffee.
World 1 and Chinese Dream
Another world map made by the artist with old computer parts is the site-specific World 1 created for the University of Bedfordshire. The work is inspired by the context in which it will be placed, in fact the university is a center of exchanges and dialogue between various cultures, there are also prestigious courses in computer and software design, so the material chosen is more than adequate.
She is very influenced by how the artists of the countries she visits work. Just after her stay in China Susan Stockwell decides to make a quilt representing all continents, which uses as a base material not of the cloth but of Chinese money. Chinese Dream reppresents the speed with which China is becoming the first world power, surpassing the old continent and the new one.
Susan Stockwell also created several states using old computer parts and different types of money, some are on sale in one of the galleries representing the artist.
Cartographic dresses
Susan Stockwell has created several life-size dresses inspired by historical 19th century clothes. This artworks are handmade by the artist who inherited her passion for sewing from her family. The artist in an interview says she loves sewing as a slow and contemplative action, through which very often she can mature new ideas The symbolic meaning behind the female clothes she makes is the desire to give women the opportunity to reclaim their territory and their femininity.
A beautiful dress by the artist is Colonial Dress, created from world maps that show the British Empire in pink. Susan Stockwell describes the work: ‘In the 1920’s one-quarter of the globe was pink, which struck me as obscene. I used the maps to make an extended world on the skirt, a sort of world map in itself. At this time, I was drawing comparisons between maps, country and continent shapes and human anatomy. I had a scan of my liver and was struck by its resemblance in shape to Brazil, hence Brazil is placed where the liver is, Africa in place of the stomach and Manchester (my hometown) is placed where the heart is.’
The Territory dress, commissioned by the Tropenmuseum of Amsterdam, refers to the Dutch colonial history showing the Dutch colonies that crossed the globe all over the dress. The great train carries the weight of a brutal past while the cavity of the stomach questions the origins of physical and national property.
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Featured Image: America: An Imperial State by susan stockwell
