2017 - 2018 On 23 June 2016, in a historic EU referendum, a small majority (51.9% vs 48.1%) of UK citizens voted for Britain's ‘exit’ from the European Union under the provisions of the European Union Referendum Act 2015, commonly known as Brexit. The British government initiated the official EU withdrawal process on 29 March 2017, which put the UK on course to complete it by 30 March 2019 or at least set in place an agreement with the EU for the UK’s departure by that date. The two-year negotiating period about the future relationship between Britain and the remaining 27 EU Member States marks one of the most challenging tasks and a key political development of our uncertain times.
The work Blueprint is part of an ongoing project exploring the methods of mass media and how manipulation and the language of power influence political debates and democratic processes. Reflecting on the visual language that has been used before, during and since the June 2016 Referendum to manipulate people and to spread popular beliefs concerning national pride, anxiety, over immigration and lack of control, I am interested in how the mass media contributed to a post-truth political environment.
In my work I focus on particularly underhand forms of persuasion, grandiloquent language and powerful visual metaphors, which are
strategically used to undermine the democratic process and to transform a reality that was once considered to be uniform, homogenous or monolithic.
By photographing details of publicly accessible online video content, uploaded on various media channels including newspapers, magazines, Leave and Remain Youtube channels, documentaries and political debates in the UK and EU parliaments, I disassemble the visual layers into their individual parts and thereby scrutinize and recycle these pixelated, transient images. In my presentation I bring these different visual extracts together, rearrange them and thereby form a new narrative.
As a photographic method, I use the blueprint; a chemical process discovered 1842 by English astronomer John Herschel. Originally used to reproduce documents, this historic proofing method traces the practices of the media and mirrors them back. The blue colour reflects on the idea of the invisible influence of the European Union on the United Kingdom.
This is an excerpt from the work. Please get in touch for more information.