e present you here below, Susan Stockwell’s work, entitled “World” and consisting of a world map made of recycled computer components supplied by an IT recycling company. The project was commissioned by Bedfordshire University, UK, and was installed in the atrium of the new student building on their Central Luton site. Susan Stockwell’s work takes many forms from small elaborate studies to large scale installations, sculpture, drawings and collage. It is concerned with issues of ecology, geo-politics, mapping, trade and global commerce. The materials used are the everyday, domestic and industrial disposable products that pervade our lives. These materials are manipulated and transformed into works of art that are extraordinary. Stockwell’s recent exhibition ‘Flood’ in York was made entirely from four tons of recycled computer components that were transformed into a site specific installation in St Marys’ a de-concecrated 13th century church. Highlighting the materials beauty the piece seeps into the space and surrounds us with its toxic exquisiteness. The computers were dissected, their innards exposed, revealing the underbelly of the machines we take for granted, an autopsy of our consumer society. The materials were lent by Secure IT Recycling (www.sitr.com) based in Cheshire and after the exhibition were returned to them to be recycled. This is an important element in the large scale installations where Stockwell borrows materials to make the work. The Curator Grace Chung describes the works gently revealing nature – ‘Accumulation, transformation, detritus, debris, everyday materials are all recurrent themes in Stockwell’s work. Meticulously hand crafted, the benign sublime beauty in the work belies the devastating effects of our culture and our role in shaping it. Look more closely, and one is confronted by a cultural urgency of global-proportions. Political and cultural colonization, globalize waste and consumption are reconfigured by Stockwell’s work into a new festering eco system of meaning that slowly seeps like the rising ocean level.’ Stockwell exhibits in galleries and museums all over the world. She has exhibited at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The National Museum of China in Beijing and The Katonah Museum of Art in America. She has taught extensively and taken part in residencies and projects in Europe, America, Auatralia and Asia. To get in touch with Susan or to have more information we invite you to visit the link below.
www.susanstockwell.co.uk
