Freeman uses pills and pill packets in different ways. Often the packets are still full.
WOWI is an impressive 10 m installation. It’s impressive in scale, but to me, less interesting, conceptually and visually, than some of her other work.
One of her devices is to trap objects into very fine, knitted pockets, which one again, transforms the objects and gives them a different set of meanings.
Cradle to grave is ‘an art installation that tells the story of the health and wellbeing of a typical man and woman in Britain today.’ (Cradle to grave, no date)
Again, the scale is impressive, but it isn’t as visually compelling as some of her other work.
Safety net, 2012
This work actually doesn’t use pill packets, but I think it still resonates with my work. This is what it says about it on her website:
‘Installation of limited edition knitted squares made for Pockets of Memory solo exhibition, Silkeborg Denmark 2012.’
“Freeman marks significant time in an autobiographical self-portrait of each of the fifty five years since her birth, ensuring that she has a Safety Net (2011) for each year she has lived; here each tiny daily pocket in the fifty-five carefully calculated squares encases a tiny gold safety pin.”
— Nicola Gordon Bowe ‘Recollecting Time, Being and Identity in the Art of Susie Freeman’
Again, it has a narrative, it marks time, its autobiographical. She uses items that are metal, ubiquitous, often overlooked; safety pins could also be regarded as a form of stitch… and each safety pin is painstakingly knitted into the work.
I’m not so keen on her final installation, though. It feels too flat and trapped and doesn’t show the subtleties of the layering of the net as in image above.
Freeman has made some of these works in collaboration with a GP and a video artist and commissioned by the Royal GP Society, The British Museum and The Wellcome Trust. Here’s their website http://www.pharmacopoeia-art.net/artworks/ It says there that
‘The artwork of Pharmacopoeia engages viewers in the debate around our relationship with medical treatments, encouraging us to examine our own medical and pharmacological history. It explores the tension between the dependence of our society on pharmaceuticals and the ambivalence we often feel towards them.’ (no date)
That sense of ambivalence is interesting too.
Freeman, S. (no date) Thumbnails Available at: http://www.susiefreeman.com/thumbnails (Accessed: 10 January 2020)
Pharmacopoeia (no date) Works, Available at: http://www.pharmacopoeia-art.net/artworks/ (Accessed: 10 January 2020)
WOWI is an impressive 10 m installation. It’s impressive in scale, but to me, less interesting, conceptually and visually, than some of her other work.
One of her devices is to trap objects into very fine, knitted pockets, which one again, transforms the objects and gives them a different set of meanings.
Cradle to grave is ‘an art installation that tells the story of the health and wellbeing of a typical man and woman in Britain today.’ (Cradle to grave, no date)
Again, the scale is impressive, but it isn’t as visually compelling as some of her other work.
Safety net, 2012
This work actually doesn’t use pill packets, but I think it still resonates with my work. This is what it says about it on her website:
‘Installation of limited edition knitted squares made for Pockets of Memory solo exhibition, Silkeborg Denmark 2012.’
“Freeman marks significant time in an autobiographical self-portrait of each of the fifty five years since her birth, ensuring that she has a Safety Net (2011) for each year she has lived; here each tiny daily pocket in the fifty-five carefully calculated squares encases a tiny gold safety pin.”
— Nicola Gordon Bowe ‘Recollecting Time, Being and Identity in the Art of Susie Freeman’
Again, it has a narrative, it marks time, its autobiographical. She uses items that are metal, ubiquitous, often overlooked; safety pins could also be regarded as a form of stitch… and each safety pin is painstakingly knitted into the work.
I’m not so keen on her final installation, though. It feels too flat and trapped and doesn’t show the subtleties of the layering of the net as in image above.
Freeman has made some of these works in collaboration with a GP and a video artist and commissioned by the Royal GP Society, The British Museum and The Wellcome Trust. Here’s their website http://www.pharmacopoeia-art.net/artworks/ It says there that
‘The artwork of Pharmacopoeia engages viewers in the debate around our relationship with medical treatments, encouraging us to examine our own medical and pharmacological history. It explores the tension between the dependence of our society on pharmaceuticals and the ambivalence we often feel towards them.’ (no date)
That sense of ambivalence is interesting too.
Freeman, S. (no date) Thumbnails Available at: http://www.susiefreeman.com/thumbnails (Accessed: 10 January 2020)
Pharmacopoeia (no date) Works, Available at: http://www.pharmacopoeia-art.net/artworks/ (Accessed: 10 January 2020)