Until 31 March 2021

Crawford Art Gallery is a project partner of ARTinTRA’s Complex States: Art in the Years of Brexit with the artwork Advent of the Inevitable (2019) by Rita Duffy.  

On 31 December 2020, the process of Brexit will be concluded. This ends four years across which Brexit has continued to raise urgent questions concerning nationality, identity, fake news, social media and globalisation. Complex States is a visual arts project that platforms artists’ critical engagement with the events of Brexit. Curated by Vassiliki Tzanakou and Catherine Harrington, it features more than 35 emerging and established contemporary artists. Complex States aims to confront the urgent topics of Brexit in a more diverse way in order to heal divides, and build new bridges across the UK, Europe and the rest of the world while retaining existing cross-national bonds.

The venues and artworks in the project will be brought together on an online platform that features a cutting-edge, augmented reality experience using the latest in mixed realities technology. All the artworks in the show will be viewable on the online platform, and a selection of works will also be available to view offline at cultural centres, in outdoor spaces, etc. Participating venues and locations will show one artwork from among a selection of artworks that include video, painting, sculpture, posters, as well as site-specific installations.

Brexit has been defined as an inward-looking event, that divided communities and “closed borders” between nations. This project presents open narratives on Brexit, and traverses national and political borders to explore the complex states of individuals, artists, cultural practitioners and communities whilst they worked through the events of Brexit and its aftermath. As an historical reflection on artistic activities during the EU referendum campaigns, and as a window on contemporary artist responses to Brexit; the exhibition hopes to engage in dialogues concerning the role of artists, and cultural practitioners in areas of citizenship, public policy, and arts activism in response to significant political events.

In the project’s journey physically and virtually across the UK and the EU post-Brexit and in the midst of COVID-19, Complex States also hopes to help deepen existing UK-European connections and create solidarity in a time of division, isolation and alienation.

Advent of the Inevitable (2019) by Rita Duffy is featured in the exhibition Citizen Nowhere | Citizen Somewhere: The Imagined Nation.

To view works from other participating galleries please visit:
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