State Britain

It is a recreation from scratch of a protest display about the treatment of Iraq, set up by Brian Haw outside Parliament and eventually confiscated by the police.

[1] State Britain is a meticulous recreation of a 40-metre long display which had originally been situated around peace campaigner Brian Haw's protest outside the Houses of Parliament against policies towards Iraq.

The original display consisted of over 600 items, many donations from the public, including paintings, placards, photos of families, banners, posters, graffiti, traffic cones, tarpaulins, temporary fencing and toys.

State Britain was meticulously researched and recreated by project lead Michelle Sadgrove (Pilkington) at Mike Smith Studio who sourced 15 artists from varying backgrounds and skillsets to work alongside her over a period of 6 months, exploring participant observation and using hundreds of photographs to match each item to the original protest display.

Michelle has since led teams of technicians installing the work at Mac/Val Paris, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Switzerland, Der Kunstverein Seit 1817 Hamburg, Museum De Pont Tilburg Netherlands and ZKM Karlsruhe Germany.

Initial press reports dwelt on the potential dangers of this infringement, speculating that the police might even remove the half of the exhibit on the "wrong side of the line".