CASE STUDIES






A situationist intervention is the injection of art into everyday life. My idea was a simple one, to print my controversial work and to display it in the public sphere. Originally, I had planned the piece to be a critique of protest culture, so I chose Trafalgar Square as a location due to its history as a site of political protest. Having discussed the notion with several colleagues I was repeatably advised that it was quite a wild idea. As I believe my work is about opening up discussion and initiating debate, I view all the conversations I had leading up to and during the piece as an important part of my process. The most interesting conversation was with Josie the printer. Before the printing process, I did say to her “I am nervous about showing you this work as it is highly offensive.” She replied, “How offensive” I responded “very!” she then asked, “will I be offended?” I shrugged my shoulders. Having looked at the image she simply stated, “I am well offended” All I could do was chuckle to myself. During the conversation that followed she raised an interesting point quoting the recent legal case in Northern Ireland where the high court upheld a bakers right not to be compelled to bake a cake with a gay slogan on it and said to me she could refuse to print the image and what would I do if she did, to which I simply replied, “That would become the artwork.”

