The relationship between body and architecture: Emily Speed's Flatland at Tate Liverpool

In 2019, Emily Speed won the Art North West call for artists from the northwest of England and was awarded a solo exhibition at Tate Liverpool as a prize. Speed explores the relationship of the human body to human-developed architecture in her work, mostly using costumes made from cardboard boxes.

In diverse artistic media, Speeds works on aspects such as the protective function of buildings for their inhabitants, but also the influence of building structures on their psyche. Already on view at Tate St Ives in 2020 was her 2017 work Rooms Designed for a Woman, a reflection on the male-dominated architectural scene and history.

Flatland is also the title of one of Speed's books consisting of visual images, inspired by the novel of the same name by Edwin A. Abbott (1884). In this social satire, women exist as lines, while men, more complex and in higher social positions, exist as polygons. Similar to the novel, Speed humorously exposes new perspectives on man and the environment he has created.