Susan Mowatt
Job title:
Head of Subject Area - Art
Role:
Senior Lecturer
Office:
Main Building, D.02a
Office hours:
Mon - Thu 8.30am - 5.30pm; Fri 9am - 12pm
Research Output:
Edinburgh Research Explorer linkBiography
Susan Mowatt is an artist and lecturer with a particular interest in weaving.
After graduating in 1989 with a degree in Drawing and Painting from ECA, she gained a PGCE from Moray House College of Education and completed an MFA in Tapestry from ECA in 1992. She worked in the Frankische Gobelin Manufactur in Bavaria and later in the Victorian Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne, Australia as an invited weaver on the Federation Tapestry.
She is a director of West Barns Arts, an organisation that provides studio provision, exhibitions and educational activities in East Lothian, and runs Cadmium Lovebug, a venture campaigning for creativity, enabling access to Art education in the community for children. This often involves student participation, including annual projects in primary schools, placing art at the heart of the curriculum.
Research interests
- Tapestry
- Weaving
- Art education in schools
- Time
- Community
Susan is currently the Head of Art and was the Programme Director of Intermedia from 2014 - 2021. She teaches across several undergraduate courses within Art and is Course Organiser of Presentation: methods & contexts 3. Other specialist courses that Susan has developed are Textiles in contemporary art practice: making & thinking and Community: social engagement in contemporary art practice.
In the past, Susan has taught at Duncan of Jordanstone and Grays School of Art. She organises annual off-site projects for undergraduate students. These have included micro-residencies at Stanley Mills, a Historic Scotland property on the banks of the River Tay in Perthshire; CAMP 21 - Cultybraggan, an old PoW camp near Comrie, Slateford Green, an award winning housing scheme in Edinburgh and Lauriston Castle in Cramond, Edinburgh. For several years, Susan has also organised projects for students working with pupils in primary schools across the Lothians.
Research
Research
Susan's research lies in the act of weaving itself: less on the artifact and more on the process. Her work has included live performances of weaving and un-weaving in a gallery space (during a solo show at GalleryGallery, Kyoto) and explorations of weaving through other media including drawing and moving image.
Susan exhibits work nationally and internationally, and has been the recipient of many prizes, notably the international Cordis Tapestry Prize (2016) and the Golden Fleece Award at Karpit, National Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (2001). Susan has represented Great Britain in the Web of Europe project (2011) and at the 11th International Triennial of Tapestry in Lodz, Poland (2004). A collaboration with Tokyo based poet Paul Hullah resulted in 'homing', a book of poetry and drawing published by WordPower.
Other outputs include delivering papers at conferences at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest and the Australian National University, Canberra, and an article published in the Journal of Language and Culture, Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo.
In 2019 Susan organised a conference at ECA with Engage Scotland: A Creative Curriculum: embedding contemporary art in Scottish schools. She is currently involved in outreach projects that bring school children into the college and that place third and final year students in schools to deliver a programme of Art activities.
