Susan McInerney (Soupsue)

Born 1973, Blacktown
Bachelor of Visual Arts (Hons)
Graduation show: 1994, 1995 (Hons)
Graduation ceremony: 1996

Artwork in Space YZ

A Good Girl, 1994
Single channel video with sound
9:32 mins

My third year at UWS in 1994 had been a year of performances and my graduation piece was a culmination of all of them. That year I was extended opportunities to perform at Wollongong University, Queensland University of Technology and Performance Space. It felt as if my performances were flowing out from each experience.

A Good Girl, my graduating performance, was a day-long performance, performed hourly to a soundtrack. The performance stage was a giant Russian Matryoshka doll made from metal rods and papier-mâché. The doll’s interior was lined with red satin and white fake fur. My hastily typed artist statement details three of the four female archetypes represented: the uninscribed child, the little girl, and the crone. In my haste I forgot to allude to the giant Matriarch in the room with its apron strings made from an umbilical like cord. Wearing my grandmother’s shoes and a Snow White-esque dress complete with birds, I played at social roles and reflected on societal pressure and shame. The Russian doll represented intergenerational behaviours and identities forged under social and religious constraints.

While much of 1994 was performance focused, I continued to create small paper works and installations based on ladies corsetry and ‘women’s work’. In my honours year in 1995, my studio space was the projector room of the abandoned drive-in theatre nestled between the Kingswood and Werrington campuses. It was a lonely space were I continued to perform solitary pieces in the drive-ins rooms and grounds. These were rarely documented and few examples have survived.

Learn more about Susan McInerney on her website and Instagram.