On Making and Unmaking: A Conversation with Sarah Blackwood

Sarah Blackwood’s studio in East London is not what you might expect. Rather than the orderly workspace of a successful mid-career artist, it feels more like an archaeological site mid-excavation. Half-finished sculptures sit alongside piles of broken materials. A large work that took three months to create is partially dismantled in the corner.

This controlled chaos is central to Blackwood’s practice. For the past decade, she has been making work that embraces impermanence—sculptures designed to fall apart, installations that exist only for a day, pieces she intentionally destroys after completion. In an art world obsessed with permanence and preservation, her approach feels radical.

We spoke on a cold January morning about failure, material intelligence, and why destruction can be an act of creation.