Cornelia Ann Parker OBE (born 1956; Cheshire, UK) is an English sculptor and installation artist.
Parker studied at Gloucestershire College of Art and Design (1974–75) and Wolverhampton Polytechnic (1975–78). She received her MFA from Reading University in 1982, an honorary doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton in 2000 and the University of Birmingham (2005).
In 1997, she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize along with Christine Borland, Angela Bulloch, and Gillian Wearing (who won the prize). Cornelia Parker worked as a Professor of Conceptual Art at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where she conducts with Klaus Ottmann intensive summer seminars.
She engages in intervention with site-specific work, and is best known for large-scale installations such as Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991), where she had a garden shed blown up by the British Army and suspended the fragments as if suspending the explosion process in time. In the centre was a light which cast the shadows of the wood dramatically on the walls of the room.[2]
The Maybe (1995) at the Serpentine Gallery was a collaboration with actress Tilda Swinton, who lay, apparently asleep, inside a vitrine, while members of the public looked at her. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia_Parker)
Artist Cornelia Parker discusses ideas around her practice.
The British sculptor discusses the place of design and objects in her work and everyday life, as well as the V&A's role as a resource for artists, designers and the general public.