Artists target imperialism and internment
From what brand of shampoo to use to which Middle Eastern Country to annihilate, we are bombarded from every angle by celebrity endorsements and spectacular propaganda, says a British art collective.
But the Ultimate Holding Company (UHC) is in revolt.
Three artists will hit Britain’s streets in October in a bid to highlight human rights abuses by exploring issues such as modern day imperialism, internment and immigration.
“Sick to the back teeth with all this crap, we don’t just seek to combat this bombardment by producing ammunition or our own, but to attack the system which propagates these messages through whatever means necessary,” says the www.uhc-collective.org.uk website.
Entitled Don’t Cross the Line, the exhibition will open for nine days from 10 October in the city of Manchester and will include sculptures, photography and large scale installation art.
Guantanamo
Jai Redman’s fully operational, life-size replica of the US internment camp at Guantanamo Bay is bound to bring home to many the sheer brutality of locking untried suspects in tiny cages.
All suspects are being held without charge and are denied access to their families or legal representation.
Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International have all expressed their disbelief at conditions in the camp, which have provoked high rates of attempted suicide.
Redman hopes his three art works will challenge public apathy and disinterest over the fate of prisoners and cause people to consider the experience of “sensory deprivation and incarceration”.
State control
London-based Maggie Lambert aims to deal with the issues of state power and control.
Her photographs challenge notions of alienation of foreigners and look at the complex history of immigration.
Helen Knowles is the third artist whose plant-paper casts of botanical instruments from a derelict botany lab highlight the international movement of plants as highly valued commodities from the colonial era until the present day.