The State We’re In - a Feral Art Gallery

My artwork: Cattle fodder, pigswill, ready and waiting to feed ‘The System’. My multiplied body, shrunken, exposed, neglected and manipulated tightly into a sardine tin, blatantly portrays the direct impact of ableism and intersectional discrimination. This represents being squeezed into a TickBox with all care, compassion and empathy stripped away.

 Maybe it is easier to conform and silently cram ourselves into sardine tins? Some have no choice! Repeating narratives of disabled bodies having to ‘fit the stereotype, have the same needs, desire only to be fixed’, perpetuates an exhausting soul-sapping system – both symptom and cause of ‘The State We're In’… We are all sardines, right??

The Gallery season 2 was a selection of high-impact artwork presented at huge scale. Alongside ten extraordinary visual pieces responding to ‘The State We’re In’, Forced into a ‘TickBox’: an Acceptable Method of Gaslighting? was on display everywhere and anywhere in public spaces of the UK. Between midnight 30th of January and the 26th of February 2023, these images could have been seen amongst advertisements, on bus shelters and skyscrapers, insurance marketing, coming soon trailers and public announcements billboards.

Full Interview below

The artwork was produced at scale and displayed for millions to see in public, sites traditionally reserved for advertising across Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales. 

A gif showing the UK with all four regions being highlighted in turn from dark blue to light blue

Source: giphy.com

The following catalyst threads a loose framework for the selected artwork:

Our world is in flux. The list seems endless: from the effects of climate change, to war, spiraling energy costs and inflation, seismic constitutional change – kings and queens and national identities – to debates around reproductive rights and gender politics. 

Can art help decode what’s happening in the twenty-first century? The Gallery invites 10 artists from around the world to make art about ‘The State We’re In’.

Featured in The Guardian and exhibited acrossed 1000s of billboards and screens up and down the UK, ‘TickBox’ was amplified alongside these ‘demand a response’ artworks:

Rue The Waves (2023) by Natasha Klutch

NOW! That’s What I Call Anxiety (2022) by Trackie McLeod

 CRY (2022) by Allyson Packer

 Let Them Eat Nothing (2023) by Sarah Maple

Forced into a ‘TickBox’: an Acceptable Method of Gaslighting? (2023)

Care (2022) by Dola Posh

What We Do (2023) by Becca + Clare

GROSSLY UNDERVALUED DOMESTIC PRODUCT (2022) by Bobby Baker

Last to inherit (2020) by HEYDT

Profit and Self (2023) by S Mark Gubb

A house upside down (2023) by Richard Woods

Full images below- and round the next corner:

One round and one square black quoataion mark are stencilled on a white box. In capital letters is written 'The Gallery. Org.UK'
A birdseye view of a painted white arrow on grey concrete pointing down. Two feet standing on the base of the arrow.
A painted portrait of a regal looking woman in patriotic British colours. She is holding a bent trident, a round Union Jack shield and a helmet with a lion on it. She has a black eye and is covered in tomato juice.
A vibrant yellow background fills the image. Text in scrawled bold bubble lettering reads: 'NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL ANXIETY'.
A barren landscape. A freight train can barely be seen in the distance. A road sign in the foreground reads 'CR Y'.
A blue and white frosted cake sits against a blue background. The cake is decorated in alternating rosettes of blue and white frosting. Piped onto the cake in cursive lettering are the words: 'Let them Eat Nothing'.
A bird’s eye view of what appears to be an open tin of sardines. Stuffed inside are numerous green tinged images of Hugh Maylon (the artist). The many clones of Hugh are uncomfortably crammed together.
A black woman sits atop her bed with a toddler sat cross-legged in front of her. She is wearing a floral robe with a burgundy head wrap. The woman combs out her daughter's afro and puts it into twists.
A group of people from different backgrounds who vary in age sit in a room together. The room's furniture is constructed from colourful paper and cardboard as if it were the set of a children's show. The cardboard scene details; two children playing
A colourful sketched character on a red background. The central figure is adorned with cooking utensils, washing and other domestic symbols. She has several arms; one holds a bulging shopping basket and another arm leans on a walking cane. A child's
A parody of an old children's building blocks advert. Pictured are two smiling white children playing with what appears to be a miniature scale city in ruins. Debris and vehicles are strewn across the play-set.
The background is a gradient of yellow to orange. In large fuchsia letters, the text reads: 'Profit and self above all else'.
Four geometric blue houses with grey roofs and orange doors. Three stand upright and one is upside down.

Behind the TickBox

My antechamber of expression, freedom and joy, is the devising space, juxtaposing ever-present physical and attitudinal barriers of the everyday experience felt by disabled communities. Through this creative tension (impairment being celebrated and shunned), true and honest representation of disabled bodies constantly emerge, telling stories which question, probe and share.

Co-creating with Tim Dollimore, we used camera and software to capture moments which speak to the human experience and understanding of disability. Using snapshots of my latest hybrid projection, soundscape and experimental performance process, Squeeze Box, ‘TickBox’ takes this liveness and represents it on public-facing 2D canvasses. An unapologetic moment of my body positioned to command the ‘gaze’… responding to ‘The State We’re In’.

‘TickBox’ questions the very foundations of how ‘care’ packages, support measures and benefits are allocated – what if you don’t tick the right boxes, what if the ever moving/tightening parameters of the box are inaccessible in the first place? The idea that every individual disabled body must ‘fit’ the stereotype, and therefore have the same needs and aspirations, perpetuates a soul-sapping system.

The work is emotively driven, starkly displaying the direct impact of ableism. This is a visual representation of consequences of the under-funded, objectifying and outdated ‘care’ assessment processes, yet they are still widely accepted and implemented. No Tick – No Funding – amplifying feelings of abandonment, losing identity, entrapment and having your thoughts and feelings dictated to you – we are all sardines, right??

The work, ironically, leans into this manipulation honestly, transparently, yet gruesomely illustrating the harsh reality that disabled people have to fight for their basic human rights.

Continuing the push back to reclaim body from object to self, I will use this exhibition to amplify calls for barriers and hegemonic frameworks to be radically re-thought. Care and empathy are undervalued by decision makers and distant from reciprocal relationships of support worker and disabled individual, dismissing the essence of the human condition – a reliance on each other, a contract of care, a power without hierarchy or judgement.

This is

the special thanks to section

Natalie Palin

Steve Sowden

Jennifer Noice

Mair George

South Devon College

A logo reads 'An Artichoke Project' in capital letters. Artichoke is stencilled on a white background with their logo featuring a globe artichoke in place of the letter 'O'.
This logo reads 'The Guardian'. Below and smaller reads: media partner'.