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Education

PhD: The Excavation and Incavation of Dance, Belfast School of Art. Funded by the Northern Bridge Consortium (2024- ongoing)

MFA Fine Art with Distinction, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (2022- 2023)

Contemporary Art Practice, Leith School of Art (2020-21)

Assistantship in Cromarty Pottery (2017)

Archaeology MA (Hons), 1st class degree, University of Edinburgh (2014)

Susie Rose Dalton is an artist, researcher and community worker whose practice is informed by archaeology and an interest in the ways that human activity leaves traces.

Clay is central to her work. She is interested in its paradoxical nature: its capacity to either preserve things indefinitely, or remaining a material that is constantly capable of change. This duality reflects a broader interest in how experiences, actions and relationships are recorded, preserved and transformed.

Selected exhibitions

Bare Bones (solo exhibition), Nomas* Gallery, Dundee (March - May 2025)

Flux: Contemporary Ceramics, Callendar House, Falkirk (August - October 2024)

Beyond Clay: London Craft Week, B.T. Batsford Gallery (May 2024)

Visual Arts Scotland Centenary Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture (February 2024)

Legacy: Bridge Pottery Collective Exhibition, Edinburgh Palette (April 2023)

Mind the Gap, GENERATORprojects, Dundee (April 2023)

Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Art, London (June - August 2022)

Materials: Hard + Soft International Contemporary Craft Competition and Exhibition, Greater Denton Arts Council, Texas (May 2022)

Personally I Would Never Do That (solo exhibition), Southblock Gallery, Glasgow (March 2022)

Contemporary Art Practice, Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh (July 2021)

With/Out Boundaries, St Margaret's House, Edinburgh (April 2019)

Susie is particularly interested in the long relationship between humans and clay, from the moment our ancestors first picked up mud from the ground and shaped it with their hands. Clay can act as a record of human activity, carrying traces of touch, movement, occupation and encounter. Her practice explores how these material traces might be used to think about experiences that are otherwise difficult to preserve, and what remains we wish to leave for the future.

Her work with people is similarly concerned with what is recorded, whose experiences are given value, and how communities are shaped through collective action. Her experience of working with and on behalf of young people in Scotland has informed a process-led approach to art-making, in which participation, materiality and hands-on making are often more important than a predetermined outcome.

Susie is currently undertaking practice-based PhD research exploring how artistic and archaeological methods might be used to materialise experiences of social dancing, in the context of the accelerating closure of dance venues across the UK and Ireland. Her research is funded by the Northern Bridge Consortium.

Susie grew up in the north of Ireland and lives on the west coast of Scotland.

contact: susierosedalton [at] gmail [dot] com
instagram: susierosedalton

Awards

AHRC International Placement Grant Award (2026)

British School at Rome Residential Programme (Northern Bridge Consortium), February 2025

Recipient of a Visual Artist and Craft Maker Award’s Emerging Artist Bursary, awarded by Edinburgh City Council, 2022

Winner of the Leith School of Art Wasps Award 2021

Named one of 30 Under 30 Inspiring Young Women in Scotland by the Young Women’s Movement Scotland, 2021

Shortlisted for Create Award, Hearsay International Audio Art Festival 2021 (in collaboration with audio producer Katie Callin)

Received 'Very Special Mention' in Miranda July's International Covid Arts Festival 2020

Workshops, conferences, and public projects

Making the Ground Move: A Contemporary Archaeology of Dance, Absence, and Ephemeral Trace. Presentation at the Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory annual international conference, Bilbao, Spain (2025)

Workshop co-leader with artist Kit Martin at Fife Contemporary Summer School (2024)

Tutor at Dundee Ceramics Workshop (2024)

Lead Artist on Deveron Project’s Growing Together Project, working with young outdoor education group TOADS (2022-23) (read more)

Co-lead artist (with artist and researcher Dr. Susie Johnston) on Fragments of the Tay, a public artwork project commissioned by Pitlochry Festival Theatre (2022) (read more)

Invited speaker, Creative Edinburgh’s Creative Mornings (2022)

Featured in

Creative Dundee, The Independent, the Irish Independent, the Evening Standard, the Belfast Telegraph, and the Falkirk Herald.

Writing

Fingerprints in clay shed light on past makers. Article in Studio Potter (forthcoming)
Artist-Researcher Field Guide, commissioned by the University of Edinburgh (2024)
Journal of Contemporary Community Education Practice Theory, When Staying At Home Can Mean Danger, Vol. 11, Covid-19 Supplementary Issue (2020)
The Usher, a short-run of absurdist zines created during lockdown, with Esmond Sage. Featured on Liminal Residency (2020)
Speaking Out: 40 years of Women’s Aid in Scotland (Co-wrote with Dr. Lesley Orr, with input from project volunteers). Heritage Lottery Funded project publication (2018)

Other work

Alongside her art practice, Susie has over 15 years of experience of working with children, young people, and adults in policy, participation, and advocacy settings. Read more here.