burdened

skyline London

It was important to locate my work in London today -so

some contemporary iconography was useful!

Here is some idea of how I create my artwork.
Political art doesn't have to be single issue statements. I think it can be used to express the nuances of a debate and provide a new means of discussing them.

From the archives -Victorians and the Social Purity Movement = anti-prostitution.

The English Collective of Prostitutes today have shown how anti-trafficking laws can cause them a lot of damage

 The burden of history resting on the term 'human trafficking'

  

 How can we talk about trafficking without talking about migration?

How can we talk about trafficking without talking about migration?

Creating the artwork

For me it was important to really understand all the issues involved so that I can create artwork that truly reflects the debate. 

This means reading heaps of articles, press releases etc. 

During this process I start to form some visuals in my mind as to how I might represent the arguments.

To me, it seemed that the term 'human trafficking' has become really weighed down by definitions and counter-definitions. There are so many different opinions, which have also become caught up in historical precidents -The Atlantic Slave Trade, the Victorian Social Purity/anti-vice movements and White Slavery fears.
I became interested in showing how the burden of argument and history has led to the actual subject of human trafficking, the people involved, being marginalised. Everyone, often with the best of intentions wants to adopt the 'trafficked' to their cause but the tension this has created makes remedies impossible.

I build my artwork by collecing found images and ephemera from the past and in the media today. I wanted to use the historical and the contemporary to demonstrate the burdens placed on the term 'human trafficking.'

YPHR Commission

A different way of looking at the issue of Human Trafficking.

Young People for Human Rights commissioned three artists and gave each a different perspective of the debate surrounding Human Trafficking in relation to the 2012 Olympics and asked them to produce a piece of artwork to reflect it.
I was given the 'Critical Perspective: Campaigners Do Damage Themselves.'
This was a real challenge to convey visually as it is very contentious and has many strands to the argument.

Initially, I found this area of the debate on human trafficking profoundly uncomfortable to deal with. On the one hand there appears to be a the viewpoint that the incidence of human trafficking (especially in relation to large sporting events), is extremely slight and exists mainly as a figment of imagination in the minds of purported ‘rescuers.’ The language associated with articles taking this standpoint is often misogynist in tone, (and thus equally as melodramatic as those ‘scaremongers’ it seeks to silence.)

The second strand of thinking comes from writers such Laura Agustin or those who either work in or alongside the sex industry. They feel that the focus on human trafficking by government agencies is being perverted into a campaign against prostitution, demonizing sex workers and leading to raids, arrests and deportations that cause more suffering. I found these opinions difficult to contend with as how can you deny the existence of trafficking when confronted by the stories of those who have been its victims, surely we don’t need their to be 40,000 people trafficked before anything is done? However, the discussion by those involved in the sex industry is clear and informed as to the harm some anti-trafficking campaigns and the conflation of trafficking with prostitution can cause.

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