Protest Too Much
Array is a Belfast-based art collective that uses protest as its medium (photo: courtesy of Array).
Northern Irish protest art collective Array, has won the 2021 Turner Prize, on the eve of the UK’s attempts to push through punitive legal restrictions on citizens’ rights to civil disobedience. It’s less a case of art imitating life than life limiting art; if the home secretary’s policing bill goes ahead, Array will have to steer clear of any protest performances that include being too noisy or obstructing traffic.
The Belfast-based art group’s work is both fun and – that terribly loaded word – necessary. They turn up to protests for abortion and LGBTQ+ rights in playful and puerile ways, swathed in lamé and brandishing banners decorated with anatomically correct ancient symbols of fertility. “Live art and performance has quite an august, avant-garde heritage to it,” says Tate Britain director and Turner Prize jury chair Alex Farquharson. “The way they’re doing it is new and different.”
The Druithaib’s Ball – the installation that won Array’s nomination for the Turner Prize – is a political version of a shebeen, an illegal drinking venue. This community space outside the law has been imagined by Array as a place where visitors can put aside the sectarian lines that divide Belfast. Its canopy-style roof is made out of protest banners calling for queer and reproductive rights. The installation was shown first in the collective’s hometown, where they dressed as druids and held a wake to mourn the centenary of Ireland’s partition by the UK government.
The same government making yet another grab for power over its citizens is a poignant backdrop, then, for this reimagining of a ‘pub without permission. Priti Patel, the UK home secretary, has inserted another 18 pages to a police, crime, sentencing and courts bill that has already passed through the Commons and had its second reading in the House of Lords. If passed, it would increase police powers to stop and search people suspected of being on their way to join a protest.
The UK government claims the powers are necessary to curb the “significant disruption” of protests, particularly those that use locking-on to disrupt activities such as traffic or heavy machinery. Locking on is a form of peaceful protest where people use chains, glue, or homemade tools to attach themselves somewhere to campaign against injustices and for the rights of people and the environment. Now, these protesters could face jail sentences of up to a year, and individuals can be banned from rallies. “This is proper police state stuff,” writes George Monboit for the Guardian.
If passed, the bill will also allow the police to prosecute people for making too much noise at protests, which could also be deemed ‘disruptive’. Given that protests are, by their very purpose, intended to temporarily disrupt normal goings-on to achieve a political goal, the government is attempting to design out any demonstrations against it. “Priti Patel has effectively criminalised the act of protest,” writes Ian Dunt for the i. “This is an assault on the core techniques of British protest throughout history.”
So, a hearty congratulations to Array, who plan to use the £25,000 cash prize to secure studio space in Belfast. Let’s just hope that they are able to continue to use art to protest injustice, rather than face imprisonment at the hands of the state.
Words India Block