I’m taking part in a group exhibition at Espacio Gallery in Bethnal Green, London, from 6 to 16 September 2017, organised by Degrees of Freedom. The Republic of Brexitopia: Signals from an imagined future is an exhibition about an imaginary country of the near future, and asks an international group of artists (I’m playing for the home side) to examine the form it might take and the forces that might shape it.
My contribution is a War memorial – for after all, the Brexitopians (like the British) are obsessed with the (Second World) War, or rather a fictional version of it, half remembered from old films. The War is used as a lazy metaphor for everything from football to Brexit. Cuts are packaged as “austerity” and we are urged to “Keep Calm And Carry On”. So before any shots have been fired, we better have a war memorial. Three Polished granite panels turn out to be plastic and the names engraved upon them are not casualties, but the cast lists of British war films.
Each film is from a different decade and about a different service: 1940s: ‘In Which We Serve’ (Royal Navy); 1950s: ‘Dunkirk’ (British Army) and the 1960s ‘Battle of Britain’ (Royal Air Force).
You can download a pdf leaflet about my war memorial here and there’s a catalogue, leaflets, press release etc. to go with the exhibition here. If you’re in London while the exhibition’s on here’s where it is….
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