Susan Stockwell show
The results of textile artist Susan Stockwell’s three-month residency at the Florence Nightingale Museum are currently on show throughout the Museum (until end of August)
‘I spent a lot of time thinking about my response to the museum’, says Stockwell. ‘The Crimea and the history of medicine and the whole thing about Florence Nightingale as the founder of nursing as we know it really appealed,’ she adds. The resulting work includes bandages embroidered with maps of the Crimea, red crosses and crescents – and in a bid to bring the war theme up to date, maps of Iraq. There are also maps of locations closer to home, including London Arteries, which takes the iconic London Underground map and turns it into a network of veins and arteries with Nightingale’s London home in South Street at its centre. Maps have long been an obsession with Stockwell as she explains: ‘They are a really rich subject matter, all about territory, ownership, imperialism and colonialism, and you can map anything you want.’
During this residency Stockwell worked with a group of teenage mothers and together they mapped their own experiences and life journeys. They ended up making the sculpture Flo, which is also on show for the duration of the exhibition.
www.florence-nightingale.co.uk
