Colonial Dress, in the series of Sculptural Garments that Stockwell has been making since 2000. Currently on show in the exhibition Postcolonial? at the House of European History, Brussels, Belgium, until March 2027. Crafted from 1920's world maps that feature British Empire-claimed territories in pink, it is loosely based on a style that reflects women's fashions in the 1880's. It is concerned with claiming female territory, mapping the female body, social and colonial histories, and their ongoing impacts. Examining how patriarchal forms of dominance spread with and through the empire and how European colonizers often dismantle pre-existing female authority and land rights, replacing them with patriarchal systems.

‘In the 1920s, one-quarter of the globe was pink, which struck me as obscene. I used the maps to make an extended world on the skirt, a sort of world map in itself. At this time, I was drawing comparisons between maps, country and continent shapes, and human anatomy. I had a scan of my liver and was struck by its resemblance in shape to Brazil; hence, Brazil is placed where the liver is, Africa in place of the stomach, and Manchester (my hometown) is placed where the heart is.’ Susan Stockwell.

Exhibitions:

Postcolonial? House of European History, Brussels, Belgium. Exhibition exploring the long-lasting effects that colonisation and its ending have had in Europe over the last 70 years.

Maastricht Art Fair 2019 with Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, NL

First Cut Manchester Art Gallery & Platt Hall, Manchester, UK 2011

Contemporary Interventions York Art Gallery, UK 2009

Paper Tiger One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, 2008, UK

Body Talks, The Florence Nightingale Museum, St Thomas ' Hospital, London, UK

Collections:

The House of European History, Brussels, Belgium

Publications:

Anti-Slave Remembrance Day: EU exhibition asks what remains of European colonialism, The Brussels Times, 24th August 2026

Can Europe ever be postcolonial? A Brussels museum confronts the afterlife of empire

The Brussels Times, 16th August 2026

Postcolonial? catalogue, Museum of European History 2026

The Art of Map Making, BBC News

The First Cut Manchester Art Galleries catalogue 2013

The Yorkshire Post It's The British Empire Story: After a Fashion 2010

Crafts Magazine Altered States Carol Tulloch 2007

Dresses

Susan Stockwell