‘In 2016 Susan Merrick worked with a group of Artists at the National Archives to respond to some of the archives official documents on mental health. The National Archives will be touring the Artist responses to these documents throughout Autumn and Winter 2016/2017. Susan’s work is a film of her performance ‘Statements in Semaphore’ that she produced in May 2016. The ephemeral quality of performance is perhaps reflected in the final exhibition production. Limited to transportable panels the exhibition will simply show archival elements of the performance, a link to the film, and the dress that the Artist wore. The responses to the archives become an archive themselves, even within their first exhibition.’

This residency and subsequent performance was the starting point for Susan’s interest in dialogue to consider research around women’s rights, and became the basis of this project Statements in Semaphore in her role as FiLiA Artist in Residence 2017.

It is for this role as resident artist across 2017 that Susan has public funding from Arts Council England for. The above film was not created using Arts Council Funding.

For more information about the Artist and her other work please visit susanmerrick.co.uk