Sue Webster on Punk, The Mole House & The Art of Non-Conformity
4/23/20261 hr 23 min
Artist Sue Webster built a career and a home by refusing to fit in — it’s why she identifies with the Mole Man so much.
She found fame alongside her husband Tim Noble, as part of the post-YBA generation — their anarchic self-portraits, made from found objects and discarded rubbish, made them the “rock stars” of British art. Together they built the Dirty House in Shoreditch, which helped define the area as the epicentre of London's art scene.
More recently, Sue has created an equally radical home for herself: the Mole House in Hackney, built on top of the tunnels where the so-called Mole Man spent forty years digging underground. Where some saw an oddity, Sue saw something worth preserving. The house is a love letter to eccentricity, and a rare pocket of creative chaos in an increasingly polished city.
From growing up in a caravan in Leicester to carving out a place in the art world and becoming a mother at 52, Sue’s story is one of fierce independence and how to live a life that is truly authentic to yourself.
Sue's first solo exhibition, Birth of an Icon, is on show at Firstsite in Colchester.
A full tour of The Mole House is available to members on Patreon:
http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt
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Contact: Email us at hello@mattgibberd.com
Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496
Music by @simeonwalkermusic
Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office
Produced by @podshoponline
The full video home tour is available to members on Patreon:
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSue Webster· Guest0:00
I wanted to preserve the history for future generations. For just eccentricity reasons, from one eccentric to another. And it, it took an eccentric woman to buy this property and to see the beauty in it and to preserve it. I get dads coming by on pushbikes with their kids, telling them about the mole man and telling them about the story. We became like rock stars, I think. Yeah, it just, it took its toll on the both of us. It st- it had a strain on the relationship. It just became really, uh, uh, traumatic. But there's nothing like designing your own space. I just couldn't live in someone else's footprint. It's like I design the life I want to live, and I'm designing the space that I want to live in.
Matt Gibberd· Host0:45
[gentle music] Hi, everyone, and welcome to a new episode of Homing with me, Matt Gibberd. Today's guest is someone I've been hoping to get on the podcast for a long time now. Um, so I'm very pleased to welcome the brilliant Sue Webster. Sue found fame, of course, working alongside her husband, Tim Noble, as part of the post-YBA generation of artists in the late '90s. Noble and Webster became known for their anarchic approach to art and life, creating ingenious self-portraits from found objects and discarded rubbish. Sue's also had a big impact on the architecture world. She and Tim built an iconic