Susan Walsh
Susan Walsh (b. 1956, Leeds; lives and works in Preston, United Kingdom)
Susan Walsh’s current research Documenting Changing Britain: Shelter Below The Poverty Line is both location and studio based and incorporates her ongoing investigations into basic needs survival within ‘outsider’ communities such as the homeless, migrants and Roma travellers. One of her areas of practice includes creating model vehicles that can be used for shelter, adapting ready-made objects, and recycled materials. With Lubaina Himid she co-directs the interdisciplinary visual art research project Making Histories Visible based at the University of Central Lancashire. She also contributed the show reel Images and Conversations from the 1980s to the exhibition Thin Black Line(s) at Tate Britain (2011) and Embodied Spaces at Framer Framed (2015).
Her interventions include Satellite Navigation /CART in Durham, a museum and site-based project in which volunteers pulled a farm cart loaded with objects essential for being on the move, both through Preston and Durham, raising questions around the invisibility of life in transit. Significant Other/Blue Plaques: the English Heritage Blue Plaques make visible the efforts made by select members of society; based on this practice she created a series of ‘Alternative’ Blue Plaques placed in sheltered locations in Preston, showing some small acknowledgment of the way many homeless people exist and survive without permanent refuge in the 21st century. Significant Other: Invisible People – Hidden Skills is an attempt to give recognition to the varied histories and skills of the many homeless people who find themselves continually sleeping rough, and to acknowledge them as the multi-faceted, creative and knowledgeable people they are.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2015
Embodied Spaces
Framer Framed, Amsterdam, NL
Curated by Christine Eyene
2011
Rub a Tub Senior – Invisible Wash
Project Space, Leeds, UK
In collaboration with Lubaina Himid
2010
To Scatter – A memorial to Irish Migrants
St Wilfrid’s Church, Preston, UK
As part of ‘In Certain Places’ curated by Lubaina Himid
2008
Delete-Space-Shift-Return
Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK
2004/5
Distance No Object
Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, UK
2003
Cupboard Love
Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK
2001
Re/Call
Geffrye Museum, London, UK
Residency and limited edition artist book
Exhibitions
