 |
| From Postcards, 2010 by Nika Autor Museum of Contemporary Art, Ljubliana, Slovenia |
It's by Nika Autor (b 1982) who used footage from the national archive about migrants in the early years of the 21st century.
She wanted to show how "images of shapeless and nameless people reestablish a discourse that victimises or criminalises these people."
It was one of two pieces that have remained with me since I was in Slovenia for a poetry festival last September. The other was Pictures of the Mediterranean Between North Africa and Sicily 2014 by Uroš Potočnik (b 1974), a triptych.
 |
| From Postcards, 2010 by Nika Autor Museum of Contemporary Art, Ljubliana, Slovenia |
I stumbled across a book title, which is now on my reading list: Pauperland, A History of Poverty by Jeremy Seabrook. His title refers to a map of poverty by the founder of utilitarianism Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832).
Bentham's upbringing is remarkably close to that of contemporary politicians: born into a wealthy Tory family, went to Westminster school, Queen's College Oxford, later called to the bar. With that background, of course he was entitled to share his ideas.
Stranded on the island of green and red that now represents most of Brighton (although Kemp Town went blue) with the blue of the sea on one horizon and the blue of the bucolic shires behind us, it is becoming difficult to keep the worst visions of the future at bay.
Why? Because I remember joking with Mandy and Nigel that Thatcher would next try and privatise social work. I am not a political scientist or historian, but browsing Bentham's ideas of poverty, I felt a chill of recognition.
There was the guy I saw wearing a bizarrely worded vest in Asda one day, apparently a 'community volunteer' according to customer services.
"Soldiers wear uniforms, why not paupers? - those who save the country, why not those who are saved by it?……" - this is from Bentham's TRACTS ON POOR LAWS AND PAUPER MANAGEMENT.
"The luxuries seen in many instances to be enjoyed by beggars, are a sort of insult to the hard-working child of industry…" - this is Bentham (same source) and straight out of the Daily Mail.
 |
| From Postcards, 2010 by Nika Autor Museum of Contemporary Art, Ljubliana, Slovenia |
We'll need to be inventive to identify and name the sources of the bizarre and 'new' ideas this administration is going to be pumping out.
Seabrook's voice is a soundtrack to Autor's found images: "the new poverty has nothing to offer in its own stead; only the sharp, opportunistic wisdom of getting by, surviving; living, as they say, one day at a time. The poor are victims of capitalism’s realm of freedom…"
 |
| The third in a triptych, Pictures of the Mediterranean, 2014 by Uros Potocnik Museum of Contemporary Art, Ljubliana, Sloveni |
He has this to say about the previous administration's efforts to punish the poor: "Bentham's cheeseparing scheme for the poor inspired generations of administrators: he would make hats brimless so as not to waste material; bedcovers would be fastened by clips to save on superfluous fabric. What an inspiration to the tax on those in social housing with a spare room, even if it holds necessary aids that enable disabled people to participate in society."
Nika Autor: http://www.autor.si
http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/nika-autor-newsreel-the-news-is-ours
Uroš Potočnik: http://www.zavod-parasite.si/eng/archives/1434
Jeremy Seabrook: http://www.jeremyseabrook.net