Susannah Mira
neoprene foam gasket scrap 10 x 10 feet, as installed 2011
neoprene foam gasket scrap 10 x 10 feet, as installed 2011
plastic display hooks, plastic lacing 14 x 17 feet, as installed 2015
neoprene foam gasket scrap 10 x 10 feet, as installed 2011
Susannah Mira earned a master’s degree in Environmental Art at the University of Art & Design Helsinki (now Aalto University) in 2008. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, and has been awarded close to two dozen artist residencies throughout the United States, including Anderson Ranch Arts Center and McColl Center for Art + Innovation. Born in San Francisco and raised in a nondescript Philadelphia suburb, she lives and works in Houston.
I utilize discarded items as a primary art-making strategy, born of both environmental and economic concerns. Like all artists, I manipulate raw material. However, I also see my practice as a visual articulation of socio-cultural changes through collection, re-arrangement, and display. In creating orderly, geometric constructions, I apply a personal logic to the by-products of larger enterprise. I also frequently employ traditionally feminine arts to these industrial remainders, such as sewing, weaving, or detailed handwork, in a willful dislocation of art, design, and craft. In general, my latest pieces are monuments to the demise of American manufacturing. The decline of this sector, the financial crisis, and gender and wage distribution in the labor market are all inspirations for this body of work.