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The brief to participating artists for this Christmas exhibition, Bah Humbug, was 'brief'. Curators asked us to make a piece that responds (positively, neutrally, negatively or even ambivalently) to issues surrounding the occasion of ‘Christmas’.
In the middle of gift buying, I’m struck by how much the children across my family, but more so across the privileged 'west', receive. It’s hard not to buy into the Christmas cheer and at the same time be fully aware that many children will not have anything near the ideal that we have come to expect each year.
So the untitled piece starts to make itself… a lit tree (from the Project Reclaim series) that I have been told is very ‘dark’, boxes wrapped with Oxfam and World Vision catalogues asking for necessities to assist communities to become self sufficient… and the request for viewers to open a boxed gift and discover what 1 billion children worldwide will receive this Christmas.
Engaging...yes – I see boxes are opened and viewers disappointed, Informative…maybe, even if the message was somewhat labored…Depressing …oh yes!
