Two things around the intenet that seem to fit together.
Here’s me talking at the Vile Arts Blog about What We Owe, my recent show at the Arches. It’s ostensibly a preview, but we ended up talking much more abtractly about the link between art and politics:
“There’s a lot of anger in the arts at the moment,” Giles observes. “And that’s coming out in the form and content of our work. Most of my performance is big-P Political — I tend to chew into a big issue (like “class” or “riots”) and then confront it frankly, try and talk about it honestly, try and make it fun for any punter to engage with. That’s what What We Owe does with the subject of debt. And it’s really nice to see it sitting in a programme of politically-engaged performance.”
Secondly, I’m in a book! Edited by Silent City, Art and Activism is a book of texts and page-based interventions on the role of the arts and their connection (or lack of) to activism. It contains a version of Give Up Art, an essay / performance / argument I wrote last year based on the classic Give Up Activism. You can read about the new book at Amelia’s Magazine, and buy it at Amazon or iTunes (I didn’t pick the platforms). It’sonly a fiver, and has 20 brilliant bits of writing in it, plus me.
Harry Josephine Giles 