Just
world
order
12 July – 7 September, 2008

Dunhill & O’Brien; Rachel Garfield; Charlotte Ginsborg; Jane Grant; Ansel Krut; Kim Noble; Tim Simmons

A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures on armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain - Anatole France.

There is an unspoken aura of anxiousness that permeates modern society: newspaper headlines and 24 hour TV news bulletins report on what appears to be an almost constant, but unspecific, terrorist threat, with governments issuing ever escalating warning levels, all the time encouraging us to be vigilant. However, within the context of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, and the London Tube bombings, there are whispered conspiracies that the US government (particularly with the PATRIOT Act) and the British government are engendering a feeling of fear within the general populace to better able them to control their respective citizens.

Just world order is an exhibition of works in a variety of media by 8 artists (2 working in collaboration) that will examine themes of angst in modern living and the disquiet we often in feel in attempting to find our place and to fit in and how we identify ourselves in relation to others and the places that we live. The title Just world order comes from a lecture given by Austrian philosopher Hans Köchler entitled Karol Wojtyla’s Notion of the Irreducible in Man and the Quest for a Just World Order. Köchler has long worked on the philosophical notion of international relations and is president of the International Progress Organization.

The exhibition will feature works that embrace displacement, both physical and mental (the latter particularly evident in the deliberately ambiguous title Just world order) and will touch upon aspiration and belonging in human endeavour. There will be no distinct conclusion, but rather an opportunity for discussion within the gallery setting: in essence, the gallery will become an ‘empty vessel’ for the visitor to explore and play out their fears with regards to modern living, and to potentially excise them. Displacement and disorientation are indicative indicators of anxiety with modern society, but embracing, experiencing and understanding what motivates us to fashion such a modern world can, within the context of Just world order, become a wholly cathartic experience.


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