Sail Away TATE Modern Turbine Hall

SAIL AWAY consisted of many small boats made from old paper currency, tickets, and maps, forming a large-scale snaking flotilla. Initially exhibited in TATE Modern’s Turbine Hall as part of the Hyperlink Festival 2013, 'Sail Away' explored the idea of 'connections' in travel, trade, mapping and personal and social histories. The boats are beautiful, delicate and playful; in mythology, boats are symbolic of the transition from the material to the spiritual world and are carriers for our dreams as well as vessels for adventure, escape and journeying. By combining boats, money and maps, these dream carriers gain other deeper meanings. 

At TATE, Sail Away included an interactive, participatory element where people were invited to make and add their boats to the pre-existing flotilla. Susan, Tate Collectives and local schoolchildren initially made boats. Then during the festival, over 800 people made and added their boats to the flotilla, and 5000 people interacted with the work. 

The chosen materials link us together; used money notes have been handled by many thousands of people, and maps and travel tickets connect our stories, experiences, journeys and places.  

Photos by Jeff Leyshon, Tate Collective, Miles Roberts, Susan Stockwell

Exhibitions:

SEA-MARKINGS at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Galleries (2016), 

The Sea is The Limit at Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, London (2017), Virginia Commonwealth University Doha, Qatar (2019) and York City Art Gallery (2018) 

Boite-en-Valise Group exhibition at the Venice Biennale and Syracuse University, USA (2017). 

Sail Away Hyperlink Festival TATE Modern, London, 2013

Publications:

The British Artist Tackling the Long Dark Shadow of Colonialism, Elephant Magazine  , by Paul Carey-Kent 2019

50 Women Sculptors (p. 175)

Art After Money, Money After Art  Creative Strategies Against Financialization Max Haiven 2018  ISBN 978 1 77113 398 2

Susan Stockwell folds a fleet of ships from global currency, designboom

Design Week Hyperlink at TATE Modern

Time Out Circuit: Hyperlink