Sue Hill - Theatre-maker, gardener, writer, storyteller, mayven, maker of giants/goddesses/creatures out of mud, sticks and plants, Cornishwoman.

This month we celebrate Sue Hill. Sue has travelled the world, making theatre in unlikely places with Kneehigh and WildWorks, from the Green Line in Nicosia to Kensington Palace, via Soweto and Scilly. With her brother, Pete Hill, she has made many large scale earth/plant sculptures including the Mudmaid and Giant at Heligan, Ardhi in the Rift Valley in Kenya, Thousand-Mile-Eye in Hong Kong and  Eve at Eden. She was Artistic Director of the Eden Project for seven years. She is currently working on new Eden Projects planned for Dundee, Morecambe and Qingdao and researching the extraordinary adventures of Clara Vyvyan. She is an Honorary Fellow of Falmouth University, a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh (bardic name Gwriores a Gewri, ‘Maker of Giants’), Chair of her local Allotment Society and a Trustee of the Gardeners’ House project in Penzance. Her hometown is Redruth.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?  

Helping to grow new forms of socially and environmentally engaged theatre with Kneehigh and then WildWorks. Creating large figurative artworks with my brother that became icons for the places and people we made them with. Curating the interpretation and tone-of-voice for the Eden Project. Guarding my freedoms and independence, resisting societal pressures to behave, be quiet, be a mother, settle, ‘get a proper job’

 What motivates you to do what you do?

Restless curiosity. The questions -‘What happens if….? I wonder if I can…? Every single thing we do has impacts, so make them positive rather than negative. I try to use what agency I have and put more joy into the world.

What do you owe your mother?

My Mum, Barney (short for Barnicoat, her maiden name) gave me some threads of DNA that held a passion for words and delight in visual imagery, particularly drawing. Her super-power was humour. Like waving a magic wand, she could use it to warm a room, prick pomposity, distract a ferocious child, de-escalate aggression, calm an anxious patient (she was a radiographer, often encountering people who were terrified of the machinery and process they were facing). I hope I have some of this too, although not at her heroic level.

Which women inspire you and why?

Pretty much every woman I meet. Just this week – Sara Clasper, Sarah Perry, Tina Varcoe, Misri Dey, Flo Crowe, Jenny Beare, Bec Applebee, Becca Mordan, Jennifer Kennedy, Mel Young, Claire Ingleheart, Lally MacBeth, Jen McDerra… women who use their art and creativity for positive change. And the women I have never met – Gloria Steinem, Lady Hale, Charlotte Church, Clara Vyvyan, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, Wangari Maathai, Women who speak up, speak out and get on with it.

What are you reading?

At the moment everything by Clara Vyvan, extraordinary adventurer, botanist, writer, gardener, mistress of Trelowarren. She walked the length of the River Rhone from source to sea to assuage grief, and canoed up the Rat River from Alaska to Fort Yukon. As well as chronicling her adventures she wrote with great tenderness and affection about life in Cornwall (there’s a project for me in this). I’m also revisiting ‘Palestine’ by Joe Sacco. At the time of the First Intifada he drew and took notes, then on his return to America made this epic piece of war reportage using the comic book medium to communicate oppression, contradiction and horror. Timely reading.

What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?

I think I am VERY thick-skinned. Gender slights, insults, put-downs just bounce off. My work has sometimes been appropriated and owned by others, I think that happens to women a lot. But I’m easy with it, so much of my work has collaborative elements, it feels like open-source is good practice.

How can the world be made a better place for women?

Simple. Educate boys to become better men

Describe your perfect day?

A bit of dreamy, mind-meandering hand-weeding on the allotment first. Then some work, maybe the beginning of a project, when anything is possible – drawing, reading, making a maquette. Later perhaps my sister, brother and I will row across Carrick Roads to The-Beach-With-No-Name. There will be a dunk in cold sea-water, followed by an enormous picnic. Pete will have caught a fish or two, Di will have baked a sumptuous cake and fired up the kelly kettle for a hot brew. A fire will be lit. We row home in the dark, the sea is glassy, with flickers of phosphorescence, where the oars or my fingers dip into the water

We've noticed there really aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?

Aaah, no more commemorative statues please! I like it when we name things after women - the Stella Turk Building at Penryn Campus, the Ann Glanville pilot gig, the Hypatia Trust

Give us a tip?

Embrace chaos, ambiguity, nuance. Certainties cancel creativity, art and understanding. And let your vegetables run to flower and seed – cavolo nero flowers taste just as delicious as the leaves. And the pollinating insects will love the feast too.