Tues 30th May 9 - 10pm, Channel 4, Grayson Perry 'Divided Britain'
Artist Grayson Perry visits areas with very different voting habits to try and understand a range of views on Brexit and the general election. In this one-off special, Grayson tries to get at what lies beneath people's political choices, uncovering the emotions, beliefs and desires that drive our loyalty to one political tribe or another, and to capture what he's found in a monumental new piece of artwork. Grayson spends time in Boston in Lincolnshire, the most Leave-voting place in Britain, and also in Hackney in London, where 78 percent voted to Remain, trying to understand both sides.
Since January, the artist has been asking the public via Twitter and Facebook to contribute images, photographs and phrases which he has then used to cover the surface of two enormous pots: one for Brexiteers and one for Remainers.
This film tracks the making of these artworks from initial thoughts to finished product, and follows Grayson as he visits the most pro-Brexit and pro-Remain parts of the country to find out people’s hopes and fears in a post-Brexit Britain.
Here's an article about the project:
Grayson Perry to depict 'Brexit tribes' on rival leave and remain vases
Leave voters, including a soldier, a mother expecting a “Brexit baby” due nine months after the vote, a rare chicken breeder, a witch, and a hammer-wielding Nigel Farage fan, have all been chosen to represent the various faces of Brexit on a new vase by the artist Grayson Perry.
The 108cm-tall leave pot, and a symbolically smaller remain version, illustrate what Perry calls the “two great tribes of our time”. They are to be exhibited side by side to mark the first anniversary of Britain’s divisive vote to leave the EU.
“These are pots to stand on the mantle shelf of Britain,” Perry announced as he began seeking volunteers to appear on the pots at the start of his crowdsourcing project.
Perry’s progress updates reveal he has selected 17 leavers and 11 remainers for the rival vases. The chosen voters have not been officially unveiled while Perry continues to work on the pots as part of a forthcoming Channel 4 programme called What Britain Wants. But their identities can be gleaned by cross-checking photos submitted online against silhouette stencils applied by Perry to the pots shown in clips he has released.
The selected leavers are a defiant group, typified by Dave Mines, a 73-year-old retired ambulance commander, who features prominently on the pot brandishing a hammer in his back garden in Chesterfield. “It felt like wielding a hammer when we voted to leave. It was a cry of freedom, for God’s sake,” he said.
Mines is a devoted fan of the former Ukip leader. “I’ve been watching Nigel Farage speeches on YouTube. That one man has done more for the country than any government since the second world war and he’s not even in parliament.”
Mines, whom Perry nicknamed Thor as he selected his picture, said he was delighted to feature on the pot. “That’s my immortality right there,” Mines said.
Alongside Mines is Daryl Robinson, a lance bombardier who has served in Iraq and the Falkland Islands. “That’s me,” he said of the stencilled outline shown in one of the clips. “It’ll be nice to see my face on something I feel strongly about. I voted leave because I can’t stand how the country is at the moment. It’s time for a change and this seemed like a way to kickstart it.
“If people want to dress up in women’s clothes, support Donald Trump, or vote leave or remain, just let them be.”
A picture of Ann Flowers crouching in a wood also appears to have made the leave pot. “I voted to leave, but I am not a racist, I’m a witch,” she wrote in her submission. “It’s good to know what side witches are on,” Perry said in a clip posted by Channel 4.
Next to Flowers is a stencil of Christina Laben in a floppy hat and wearing a “crazy chicken lady” T-shirt. Laben, 60, breeds rare hens in Carmarthen in south-west Wales. “I breed them my way,” she said. “I’m proud for people to know I voted to leave. I’d like to go there and smack the arse of the man who thinks he can just appoint himself and tell me what to do. I think the outcome will be super.”
Also selected is Lois Merrick, a horserider “riding into a beautiful sunset of independence”.
Perhaps the most eye-catching voter on the leave pot is art teacher Liz Jackson, who submitted a picture of herself with “Brexit baby” scrawled across her womb as she holds aloft a union jack. The baby is due exactly nine months after the EU referendum. “I hope Brexit baby grows up in a less polarised and divided society,” said Jackson, who lives in Colchester, Essex.
“Submitting my photo was a bit scary – I had seen lots of Brexiteers being verbally attacked and harassed. But I decided early on that I would rather speak up for those who were too afraid to.”
She said she was “ecstatic” that she and her unborn child would feature on the leave pot. “The photo is symbolic of new beginnings. I am very optimistic about the future of an independent UK.”
In front of Jackson’s stencil is David Burns, a wheelchair user from Dorset, who describes himself as “a self-unemployed artist”. In his submission he wrote: “Struggling to make a living is an everyday occurrence, that’s why I voted leave – how much harder can it be.”
Those on the remain pot are much more pessimistic. Jo Barber, 30, a wheelchair user who looks set to feature on the remain pot, is “terrified that by separating we are heading towards another world war”.
Gordon White, 53, who repairs guitars in Leeds, said: “I’m still furious. I shout at the television and the radio much more than I ever did before. We were forced to make a decision that nobody was qualified to make.”
He is excited that he appears to be on the remain pot holding a guitar, but anxious about how it will turn out. “I’m worried that the leave pot is going to look a lot more fun. The remain one is going to have a lot of miserable-faced people like myself whingeing and complaining.”
The bottom of the remain vase looks set to feature an image of Barbara Hulse struggling to get out of bed. “Brexit has left me feeling vulnerable, isolated and ashamed,” she tweeted.
Nathan Barnard, 19, from Shropshire, who describes himself as a transgender man, was in tears after the result. But he is thrilled that a photo of him with a pot of his own was selected by his hero. “It is amazing. Grayson is one of my biggest inspirations both socially and artistically as I’m an aspiring ceramicist.”
Kate Maravan, a dancer and actor, also confessed to weeping after the result. But in her submission, she says: “I’ve become extremely frustrated at being labelled a remoaner, snowflake, metropolitan elite.”
Rachel Green, who features holding an eagle, hopes there will be a second referendum. The 45-year-old support worker from Sheffield is excited by Perry’s project but doubts it can help unite the country. “There is such a huge divide. I’m not sure it can be reconciled,” she says.
Perry himself said that “anxiety seems to be a theme” of the submissions from remainers. But there are things both remainers and leavers can agree on. Given a choice of six colours, both sides chose blue for their respective vases. And they all chose the symbol of a teapot to decorate the pot.
The finished pots will appear in an exhibition of Perry’s work at London’s Serpentine Gallery (pdf) from 8 June to 10 September.
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/mar/06/grayson-perry--depict-brexit-tribes-rival-leave-remain-vases
