Art work at York St Mary’s sponsored by Secure IT Recycling
by Tim Bugg
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Artist Susan Stockwell will be making an exhibition of her work made from with 4 tons of computer power supplies generously loaned by Secure IT Recycling.
The exhibition will be at York St Mary’s and will run from June to November 2010. York St Mary’s is a deconsecrated 15th century church in central York that is part of York City Art Galleries and Museum’s Trust - www.yorkstmarys.org
The computer components will be transformed into a sculptural form flowing down from the ceiling of the church and spilling onto the floor, as if flooding the space. The main body of the piece will be sited where the old church alter once was and will flow out across the church floor.
Secure IT Recycling have been saving the components for the exhibition and at the end of the exhibition the materials will be returned to them for recycling. This is an important element in Susan’s large scale installations where she borrows materials to make the work. For example she made a body of work from toilet tissue (1990’s)-sponsored by the Kimberly-Clark co-operation. She often makes work with recycled and everyday materials, from computer components to tea bags, money, rubber inner tubes and Mills and Boons novels. Susan chooses these industrial and domestic ‘commodity’ materials because, in her words, they contain ‘Stains of Existence’ and ‘act as ready-made signifiers’ which she can sculpt and interweave in ways that delicately reveal their obscured politics and hidden beauty.
Susan first worked with computer components in Taipei, Taiwan in 2008 where she made the installation B-side Ecology at the Hong’s Foundation for Education and Culture sponsored by E&E recycling inc. In Houston (2009) Stockwell made another exhibition called Vulnerable Ecologies with component generously supplied by TechnoCycle www.technocycle.com Here the components were dissected, their innards exposed, revealing the underbelly of the machines we take for granted. The map America was made from high end components in Houston(see image).
Susan Stockwell exhibits in galleries and museums all over the world. She has had exhibitions at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The National Museum of China in Beijing and The Neuberger Museum of Art in America. She has taught extensively in Britain, America and Taiwan. See her website www.susanstockwell.co.uk for more info.
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