- Venue
- W3 Gallery
- Location
- London
‘Riot Here Riot Now’ at W3 gallery
I have just seen this exceptional exhibition at the W3 Gallery on Acton High Street. The gallery was set up a year ago by Acton Community Forum and is run entirely by volunteers. This freedom from the commercial imperative allows the W3 to show a wide variety of edgy and hard-hitting work without having to compromise to make sales. Recent exhibitions have included an analysis of FGM, including beautifully crafted pieces in wood, metal and textile, made by sufferers themselves.
As an example of the craftivist movement, which uses traditional techniques and materials in new, surprising and contemporaneously relevant ways, ‘Riot Here Riot Now’ is a show that casts a critical and humorous gaze on the organisation of our modern society.
Lucy Sparrow’s large Periodic Table of Heartfelt Destruction textile subverts the meaning of military hardware by rendering it soft and floppy, thereby highlighting the harsh nastiness of the myriad devices we have invented to destroy each other. It posits the possibility of a more playful and feminine response to human conflict.
Karen Wydler, with her simple little horticultural worlds in shopping baskets, draws attention to the industrialisation and globalisation of our food production, with vast companies increasingly owning and patenting the very seeds which are the basis of our sustenance. She is saying, how much better is the small-scale, organic production that has sustained us for millennia.
DRB’s works draw on multiple references to oppression and injustice and depict the legitimate response of riot to abuses of power. He illustrates his themes on beautifully made little matchboxes and layered screen-prints.
Carrie Reichardt, in her intricate and complex mosaics with their bold designs and rich detail, comments on increasingly draconian state power and the recent unmasking of TV childhood heroes as paedophiles.
Lady Muck offers her medals for services to resistance, which include nocturnal urban beautification, and Mark Wydler shows yet another side-effect of the relentless global drive for industrialisation and continuous economic expansion- the disastrous effect this is having on the world’s natural eco-systems and individual species. Species are now becoming extinct at a rate 10,000 times faster than the expected rate under normal conditions.
This exhibition highlights what seems to be a self-evident fact: that a revolution is necessary in our thinking on some deep level, both to correct extremes of global social injustice, and to rediscover our respect for the environment and other living things.
As Kevin O’Donohoe says in his piece, ‘If we stop it’s a riot, if we continue it’s a revolution’. This can be interpreted in many ways: if we stop we are nothing but a minor disturbance or annoyance to those who aim to control our destinies, but if we keep going we can effect fundamental change. All in all this is a very thought-provoking and interesting show, that deals with issues we cannot afford to ignore.
There is still the chance to see it. It runs until Sunday 1st December, when there will be a closing soiree from 2-6 pm with all the artists present.
W3 Gallery, 185 Acton High Street, London W3 9DJ W3gallery.org.uk
