“That the accused persons, mostly poor themselves, were not responsible for this economic suffering was beside the point; they were perceived as the cause, and that perception sufficed to justify scapegoating them.”
From Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts, by Anne Llewellyn Barstow, 1994, p.100 [Pandora]
I had hoped to catch the Witches and Wicked Bodies exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, but it ends on November 3rd and I won’t be able to go up until December due to various work committments.
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/whatson/exhibitio…
Of course a lot of the work in the exhibition is likely to be familiar – Durer, Baldung, Goya, Paula Rego and Kiki Smith, but the witch-body ties in with my interest in sinister and monstrous bodies and their production within a particular set of social, political and economic circumstances.
Whose are the reviled bodies of 21st century austerity Britain? The usual suspects: benefit claimants; single mothers; immigrants – often all three qualifications are found in the same body . There are others, but these spring immediately to mind.
How are we/am I as artist(s) to engage with these manifestations?
