‘Distress Call / Collapse’

Material: Steel, cotton tape, audience

Dimensions: variable

Year: 2018

A distress signal indicates that a person or group of people are threatened by serious and/or imminent danger and require immediate assistance. For hundreds of years inverted national flags were commonly used as distress signals. However, for some countries’ flags it is difficult to determine whether they are inverted or whether there is no cause for alarm.

In the context of an austerity-driven Brexit process and the rise of nationalist identity politics in England and abroad, societies are clearly in distress. Therefore the artist feels that we must intervene.

This installation creates a situation that provokes the viewer to move from a position of observer to active participant. What will it take for you – both within the gallery and outside, to cross the line and intervene?