This is one of two exhibitions opening in April 2026 from artist Susan Aldworth whose work explores our sense of self.
In the immersive installation Belongings, anti-immigration narratives are challenged as it aims to create pathways for belonging with people seeking sanctuary. Featuring the imagined contents of the suitcase the artist’s grandmother brought with her when she was migrating from Northern Italy to London in 1924, the installation features thirty-five individual antique clothes. Suspended in mid-air, they highlight the transitory and emotional nature of an uprooted life.
Belongings has grown in response to current discussion, tension and research into global migration, forced displacement, sanctuary and mental health where political rhetoric ignores individual stories of hope, change, refuge and difficulty. This exhibition explores the artist's grandmother’s migration just over a hundred years ago (1924) in the context of the large number of women currently seeking refuge from Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Syria today, driven by her desire to share how every refugee or migrant has their own story to tell and her distress about the current hard-line anti-immigration stance of the UK government accompanied by a growing anti-immigrant rhetoric in the media. In the immersive installation, 35 antique pieces of clothing are hand embroidered with family photographs, recipes, messages and stories. Responding to the installation throughout its run will be a series of artworks created by migrant groups based in Edinburgh.
Image: BELONGINGS 10, Installation by Susan Aldworth, 2023. Photograph by Peter Abrahams
Banner Image: BELONGINGS 8, Installation by Susan Aldworth, 2023. Photograph by Peter Abrahams
