Sail Away
2013 -
SAIL AWAY consists of many small boats made from old paper currency, tickets and maps that form a large-scale snaking flotilla. Initially exhibited in TATE Modern’s Turbine Hall as part of the Hyperlink Festival 2013, 'Sail Away' explores 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 and money these dream carriers gain other deeper meanings.
At TATE Sail Away included an interactive, participatory element, consisting of hundreds of paper boats crafted from international money notes, travel tickets and maps placed on the floor. People were invited to make and add their boats to the flotilla form. 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. For the Hyperlink Festival at TATE the artist’s studio, local school children and Tate Collectives initially made boats. Then over 800 people made and added their boats to the flotilla and 5000 people interacted with the work.
Photos by Jeff Leyshon, Tate Collective, Miles Roberts, Susan Stockwell
Exbibitions:
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:
Elephant Magazine The British Artist Tackling the Long Dark Shadow of Colonialism by Paul Carey-Kent 2019
50 Women Sculptors (p175)
Art After Money, Money After Art
Susan Stockwell folds a fleet of ships from global currency designboom
Design Week Hyperlink at TATE Modern
Time Out Circuit: Hyperlink
