The Will Of The People, 2016-2020
see book dummy Moving The Goalposts (2024)
https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11967142
The images are based on spectrograms of speeches by the British government between 2015-2017, published Brexit studies, headlines in the media and on my notebooks where I reflect on the impact of the referendum since 2016. Their populist rhetoric frames politics as a struggle between the Will of The People and the establishment that is represented by parliamentary democracy. PM Theresa May offers a romanticised description of the narrow margin win of the vote to leave the EU as a protest by “ordinary working people” who “stood up and said they were not prepared to be ignored anymore”.
Having lived in a dictatorship I am familiar with the mechanism of brainwashing people: the 3 million European UK residents are referred to as a depersonalised mass of migrants. Meaningless slogans seem to offer comfortable easy fixes, repeated as mantras, and worshipped like immovable sacred texts. Distorting facts, inventing statistics, xenophobic rhetoric, hate speech and making impossible promises helps to create a climate of fear of immigrants, Hostile headlines play to people’s baser instincts and prejudice, confirming their views. Believing in the rhetoric of Take Back Control and national sovereignty has given many people with long held questionable beliefs, license to express their hate-filled bile under the assumption that central government supports and is finally acting on these racist views.
However, the voice of the 3 million Europeans living here in Britain is absent. The exclusion of us as participants in society has been legitimised by the phrase: “The people have spoken.” Perversely, at the same time, Britain relies on this group of unwanted foreigners for their skills in education, the NHS, academia, science, industry and for their financial contribution in paying Tax. The reality is that immigration has been used as the scapegoat for all of this country’s problems, from crumbling social services to increased poverty rates.
The EU citizens remain what they have been since day one: the main subject in Brexit discussions but forever condemned to be victims of decisions that fundamentally impact mostly on them.
4 images; (1220X1220mm), c-prints
Shortlisted for Aesthetica Art Prize, 2021
https://aestheticamagazine.com/profile/christiane-zschommler-3/
https://vimeo.com/522504035
https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11967142
The images are based on spectrograms of speeches by the British government between 2015-2017, published Brexit studies, headlines in the media and on my notebooks where I reflect on the impact of the referendum since 2016. Their populist rhetoric frames politics as a struggle between the Will of The People and the establishment that is represented by parliamentary democracy. PM Theresa May offers a romanticised description of the narrow margin win of the vote to leave the EU as a protest by “ordinary working people” who “stood up and said they were not prepared to be ignored anymore”.
Having lived in a dictatorship I am familiar with the mechanism of brainwashing people: the 3 million European UK residents are referred to as a depersonalised mass of migrants. Meaningless slogans seem to offer comfortable easy fixes, repeated as mantras, and worshipped like immovable sacred texts. Distorting facts, inventing statistics, xenophobic rhetoric, hate speech and making impossible promises helps to create a climate of fear of immigrants, Hostile headlines play to people’s baser instincts and prejudice, confirming their views. Believing in the rhetoric of Take Back Control and national sovereignty has given many people with long held questionable beliefs, license to express their hate-filled bile under the assumption that central government supports and is finally acting on these racist views.
However, the voice of the 3 million Europeans living here in Britain is absent. The exclusion of us as participants in society has been legitimised by the phrase: “The people have spoken.” Perversely, at the same time, Britain relies on this group of unwanted foreigners for their skills in education, the NHS, academia, science, industry and for their financial contribution in paying Tax. The reality is that immigration has been used as the scapegoat for all of this country’s problems, from crumbling social services to increased poverty rates.
The EU citizens remain what they have been since day one: the main subject in Brexit discussions but forever condemned to be victims of decisions that fundamentally impact mostly on them.
4 images; (1220X1220mm), c-prints
Shortlisted for Aesthetica Art Prize, 2021
https://aestheticamagazine.com/profile/christiane-zschommler-3/
https://vimeo.com/522504035
