‘AADIEU ADIEU APA (Goodbye Goodbye Father)’, 2009

solo show, Gasworks, London

This solo exhibition delved into the history of mass public spectacle in the UK, in order to explore some of the ways in which British national identity has been constructed. The sculpture, video, posters and banners that made up the show, highlight the place of pageantry, theatricality and ritual in British public life – still used today by a patrician elite to narrate a nationalist version of history sympathetic to their own interests.

Filling the gallery at Gasworks was an architectural model, titled Empire City: The World on One Street. It represents the British Empire Exhibition, which took place in the West London suburb of Wembley in 1924. Made to function like a museum diorama, it is a teaching tool using display methods from the past, to demonstrate the relationship between imperialism, trade and religion.

As an event, the purpose of the British Empire Exhibition was to educate the public during their leisure time about Britain’s trading relationships with its colonies and bolster support for imperialism. In 1924 it was the largest exhibition that had been staged anywhere in the world, and the pavilions were piled high with theatrically displayed commodities, produced by the countries Britain ruled over. One of the most absurd examples was a life-sized refrigerated statue of the Prince of Wales riding a horse, carved in butter, which occupied the Canada pavilion. At that time, butter was one of Canada’s main exports to the UK. Human exhibits were also included, with over 60 west-African people housed in ‘native villages’ in the pavilions representing Gold Coast (now Ghana), Nigeria and Sierra Leone. The model mixes the plan of the British Empire Exhibition with the fictional topography of John Bunyan’s widely read evangelical allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678).