Stella Rooney

Stella Rooney is a Glasgow based artist who investigates labour from the perspective of both past and present. Considering the rise of the service economy and the decline of organised labour, her practice wrestles with the ghosts of deindustrialisation. Working with photography and moving image, Rooney seeks to identify past, present, and future points of solidarity.

Her recent work is influenced by the women of Dundee and their role in shaping the city’s industry. Former mass employers, the Jute mills and Timex factories, employed predominately women workers and earned Dundee a reputation as a matriarchal city. Today, most factories and mills are long closed and many women now work within the care and service sectors, with often lesser working conditions. Rooney charts the trajectory of Dundee’s matriarchal culture and examines the legacy of working-class women’s leadership within a city still yet to recover from deindustrialisation.