Bunker Talk #166: Stephen Sutcliffe

Bunker Talks invite artists and researchers to talk about who they are and what they do.

Talk #166: Stephen Sutcliffe

UK based artist Stephen Sutcliffe (1968, Harrogate) creates and exhibits films, collages, wall paintings and photographs from an extensive archive of material he has been amassing since childhood, together with items found in institutional collections. Often reflecting on aspects of British culture and identity and having literary origins, the results are melancholic, poetic and satirical amalgams which subtly tease out and critique ideas of class-consciousness and cultural authority. Employing an extensive editing process Sutcliffe’s works subvert predominant narratives, generating alternative readings through the juxtaposition and layering of both found and self-generated material.

Recent solo exhibitions include, Psychopomp, Moon Grove 2026, You Can Come in But You Won’t Like it, Rob Tufnell 2023, High Windows, Dead Birds, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2019). Sex Symbols in Sandwich Signs, Talbot Rice Edinburgh, Twixt Cup and Lip, Hepworth Wakefield (2017), Going Over, Rob Tufnell, London (2015), Outwork and Workings Out, Tramway, Glasgow (2013). In 2018 he participated in the Manchester International Festival in collaboration with Graham Eatough on a film for the Whitworth Gallery No End to Enderby, for which they won the Contemporary Arts Society Award. He has been shortlisted for the Jarman Award twice and in 2012 he won the Margaret Tait Award. In 2019 he had two books published, at Fifty (Sternberg Press) a monograph and Much Obliged, (Book Works) a kind of autobiography. That year, he curated a Herbert Read Archive exhibition at Leeds University's Brotherton Library with Pavillion, accompanied by the video City of Dreadful Something. In 2024 he presented Memories of the Five Administrations, a joint exhibition with Simon Bedwell at Beaconsfield Gallery, London.

Bunker Talks

This event is part of Bunker Talks. Bunker Talks invite artists and researchers to talk about who they are and what they do. Curated by the Performance Research Group at Manchester School of Art and the School of English, Bunker Talks explore geopolitical, ecological or economic concerns. The talks create space for critical encounters, presentations, provocation and dialogue as part of a civic conversation.

Originally conceived in the pandemic to explore how artists, writers, curators and researchers continued to make and share their work, live Bunker Talks now take place at The Salutation every month. Since 2020, over 160 talks have been hosted by Performance Researchers and colleagues from across the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. All talks are recorded, edited, captioned and then archived to create an online catalogue, capturing how artists, makers and curators think about the world today. Find previous talks here: https://www.art.mmu.ac.uk/bunkertalks/