Territory Dress a film by Susan Stockwell

Описание: Territory Dress 2019 is a digital film by Susan Stockwell. The film explores the sculpture ‘Territory Dress’ and juxtaposes it with archival film of past seafaring imagery. It is as if the figure is remembering her history and making imaginary connections.
Concerned with claiming female territory, mapping the body and exploring memories, traces and stories of colonial and social histories both the film and sculpture are about our colonial past and its contemporary significance.

The paper and printed maps display the Dutch colonies that spanned the globe. A contemporary map of Netherlands forms the jacket with the roads and highways dripping down the sleeves like blood. A ship made from a Dutch Antillean banknote sails out from the centre of the abdomen, which forms an inner globe, lined with Dutch ports. Bar codes and computer wires hint at contemporary languages and codes.

The train construction references Suriname angisas, headscarves. Here and there dark flowers stand out against the blue seas, folded from a type of Batik, symbolizing Indonesia. All these symbols reference trade, borders and power relationships and speak of a legacy of a shared history that we must all deal with. The train creates a kind of movement, as if passing through time, pulling the weight of a brutal past whilst the hollow of the stomach questions the origins of bodily and national proprietary.

Directed by Susan Stockwell
Filmed and edited by Bevis Bowden
Music by Raphael Anton Irissari
Poem - A Coat by W.B. Yeats
Sculpture originally commissioned by Museum van Wereldculturen, location Tropenmuseum, NL
copyright Susan Stockwell 2019

The film ‚Territory Dress‘ (2019) was screened alongside the sculpture ‘Territory Dress’ (2018), December 2019-March 2020 in the Tropenmuseum and will be screened in London 2020.