Straining Every Sinew / Birmingham (2020)
Installation
Environmental Protest Banners x 6
The Edge 79-81 Cheapside Deritend B12 0QH
29th August 2020
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Throughout the Covid 19 pandemic (& the UK BREXIT negotiations that preceded it) media channels have relayed powerful, omnipresent, messaging. We, the people, have been corralled, controlled and manipulated by a series of intense governmental briefings designed to save our lives and livelihoods (and of course the economy). Yet, as a species, we are presently threatened by a far larger and more pressing scenario that has the ability to overwhelm life as we know it. From species decline to global warming via ocean acidification and an ever-increasing carbon footprint, we are reaching and exceeding ‘tipping-points’ which will radically impact upon our ecosystems ability to survive, let alone flourish.
In response, a series of protest banners embody majestic moral protestations taken from actual governmental announcements. They are rousing, energising and designed to stimulate action but none of the original meanings point to the climate crisis. Having lived through 20 of the warmest years on record, and with species loss now totalling 68% of the worlds mammals, birds, fish and reptiles over the last 45 years, the time has come to read the signs that surround us.
To take action and to strain every sinew.
‘QUIET CARNIVAL’
Q: As we emerge into a new paradigm, how do artists and audiences get to engage? How do we make ourselves feel safe in a time when going to the shops feels like a game of Russian Roulette?
A: Quiet Carnival explored ways of making and presenting artworks, performances and interactive experiences from an interdisciplinary perspective; bringing practitioners and their audience into collaboration for the first time since ‘The Before Time’.
Carnival has been a way of upsetting the apple-cart, overturning hierarchies and burning off energy in a chaotic and celebratory form since Medieval times, taken on by cultures across the world as a way of blowing off steam and challenging the powers that be.
The event was ticket only, and hosted by a team of performers tasked with keeping the audience safe.
An Insecurity Team was on-hand to ensure safety and comfort. Each audience member was assigned their own ‘station’, to which they could return, at any time, after sampling the visual art, performance and live music on offer in the yard and building.
Confirmed artists and performers: Robyn Woolston, Bethany Kay, Claire Whitcomb, Albert Smith, Mark Murphy, Odmansbox, Tyrone Huggins, Sarah Kaur, Germa Adan, The Insecurity Team, Sebastian Hau-Walker, Ben Jones, Sandra Hall, Yas Lime, Redhawk Logistica, Doctor David Ethics and more to be confirmed.
— Friction Arts, Birmingham, UK