Highland Dress is a life-sized female dress sculpture composed of pink Ordnance Survey maps of the Scottish Highlands. This work is part of a series of life-size dresses constructed from antiquated maps and currency that relate specifically to aspects of British history. This particular dress is composed of Ordnance Survey maps of the Scottish Highlands, addressing the issue of English colonization and occupation of Scotland over 300 years.

Together with the pink colour, the imaged contours of the Scottish Highlands suggest bodily form.

‘Stockwell delivers a visual blow to English colonization and occupation of Scotland over 300 years. Using military maps to create a woman’s dress sends a double message of war and politics being dominated by men in Western history. The strongly posed representation of feminism battles against male denial of power and suggests that men can only settle disputes through wars.’

Quote from Review of Mapping: Memory and Motion in Contemporary Art at Katonah Museum of Art - International Journal of Multicultural Education, Vol.12/no 2, 2012.

Susan's ongoing series of Dress Sculptures crosses the boundaries between art, fashion & craft, questioning our need to separate and categorise. Their beautiful, finely crafted details and tactility draw the viewer in, and then they can read the deeper, layered conceptual questioning in the works.