...AND THEN THEY BUILD MONUMENTS TO YOU

UK Drill music, and wider relations to criminality, often have blame misplaced on the individual over systems. The DIY cultures we demonise are often celebrated retrospectively. '…AND THEN THEY BUILD MONUMENTS TO YOU' appropriates the protest aesthetics and memorabilia of the Miners' Strikes and punk culture of the 1970s and 80s, asking how we can remember communities that are censored, monitored and banned. Recontextualising our current understandings of the criminal justice system into familiar and tested mediums: union banners, badges, and the concept of the rockstar - aims to aid in a more contemporary and complete awareness of 'the criminal'. A union banner, conceptualised and designed with prisoners, results in endearing and complex representations of conversations and ideas from the men themselves. Each panel references paintings in the National Gallery: an insertion of the criminal into high culture. The banner is supposed to be interacted with, dissected and appreciated, in the same ways we connect with fine art. The words are lines extracted from a poem by Marcus, and the stories behind each section are formed from conversations with Hashok. 'DRILL NOT KILL' badges reference slogans and symbols from the Miners' Strikes, directly comparing the two DIY subcultures. The phrase aims to remove the music genrefrom its perceived responsibility in serious and violent crime, calling attention to the hypocrisy and insincerity in the ways authorities deal with the controversy surrounding drill. Slomotion guitar smashing and Union Jack brandished imagery explores the alienation of drill music and crime as 'un-British', investigating the ways in which products of British government policy can be punished or ignored by British government authorities. Words and voice over by sociologist Lambros Fatsis, featuring musician and artist Baby Panna.

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