Cornelia Parker

As a working-class girl, receiving free school dinners, I studied art history. Having never had the chance to visit art galleries, I devoured the knowledge, and it has served me well as a practising artist. ”

I always love the court fool in Shakespearean times, in Henry VIII's time. The fool can say all kinds of stuff that the other people can't say, so I'm hoping I might take that role. ”

I never got to play as a child. All my spare time was spent working on my family's smallholding. ”

I think design means, for me, almost when man, back in time, decided to do something conscious. You know... to shape something and make something different from just using things that were lying around. So whoever designed the wheel were onto a good thing. ”

Who thought it would be a good idea to undermine art in the school curriculum? Who thought studying the history of our visual culture was a waste of time? Who thought that only private schools should have that privilege? Was it someone who said we don't need experts? ”

A lot of my stuff just wasn't saleable. I still don't do private or corporate commissions. It becomes like interior design. I don't enjoy it. The process makes me feel physically sick. ”

Art and creativity are crucial, whether you're a mathematician, a scientist, or an artist. ”

I think my work is like a spiral: you keep coming back on yourself, but you're at a different place. It's like reading 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' every five years. You realise that some things have caught up. ”

Being a sculptor who uses found objects, all the objects I use in my work have been designed by other people. So I'm tweaking them in some way by squashing them or throwing them off cliffs! Then I formalise my damage by suspending them or arranging them in some kind of way. So I'm using other people's design in a way, so I'm an 'un-maker.' ”

My work has threads of ideas from all over the place. I try to crystallise them in something simple and direct that the viewer can then take where they want. ”