Since a 51.9% majority of voters elected to leave the European Union in the Brexit referendum held on 23 June 2016, the future of the United Kingdom and its relationship to the rest of Europe has been in crisis. This past week, the Brexit problem reached boiling point as British Prime Minster Theresa May presented her withdrawal agreement to her government, resulting in Tory ministers resigning in hordes. As an emergency summit on Sunday quickly approaches and Brexiteers continue to put May under pressure over fears of a ‘soft Brexit’ that will apparently threaten UK sovereignty, the issues of Northern Ireland’s border with the Republic of Ireland and how to maintain flexible trade links with the EU still remain to be resolved. Meanwhile, May holds out for what she and her cabinet have referred to earlier in the year as “a principled and practical Brexit”, while the President of the European Council declares Brexit as a “lose-lose situation”.
As the Brexit deadline looms — the deal is set to be done and dusted by 29 March 2019 — SLEEK spoke with a selection of artists and writers about what the future will hold for the UK and the EU. What do these individuals fear about this arrangement, and what will be lost and gained through Brexit, if anything? Taking into account their geographical standpoints from inside and outside the UK, and covering topics such as identity, economics and political uncertainty, we asked them, to paraphrase philosopher Theodor Adorno, can there still be art after Brexit?
Accompanying their viewpoints are photographs from Isabelle Graeff ‘s photobook Exit, which traced the British search for identity before the historic Brexit vote between 2015 and 2016.
Nick Laird — poet
The notion of freedom is a significant one for poet and novelist Nick Laird, whose recently published poetry collection, Feel Free, tackles the complex subject. Having grown up in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, Laird says that he waited all his life for “Northern Ireland to become more like the rest of the world, but what happened was that the rest of the world became more like Northern Ireland – them and us, black and white, right and wrong”. Laird is concerned about the impending threat of Brexit on his native country, and laments the very real possibility of physical borders being resurrected between the North and South of Ireland, in which case “Brexit is going to mean a great deal to the people of Northern Ireland”. Laird continues, “Border posts will be targets for dissident terrorists. To paraphrase James Joyce, it’s taking us back into a nightmare from which we thought we had awakened”. Although Laird posits that Brexit means a realisation of “what was an idealistic enterprise of cooperation and peace (the EU) has been rejected in favour of shadowy global forces that can manipulate the public to vote against their own interests”, there is always still room for poetry. “Poetry and fiction are complicating forces. They allow nuance into the received forms, the platitudes, the generalisations. All writing can do is its best at this time of upheaval.”
Sophie Mackintosh — novelist
Originally from Wales and now based in London, The Water Cure author Sophie Mackintosh has always felt more Welsh and European rather than British. “I have always identified more with a European identity, with much of my family and friends either living in European countries or originally from there.” But Mackintosh is quick to consider that this feeling might come from a “privileged, middle-class place” as there are “areas in the south of Wales that voted strongly for Brexit — disenfranchised areas that have a lot of poverty,” she explains. “In these areas Europe can feel very far away, a place that doesn’t care about a small country such as Wales, a place that doesn’t have relevance to daily life.” In 2016, Mackintosh began to write The Water Cure, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, when “Brexit was very much on our minds, and the world felt strange and dangerous”. The novel, which imagines a group of young women surviving under patriarchy in an eerie, dystopian future, provided Mackintosh with an outlet to “channel those feelings into something”. Mackintosh is fearful about what the future will hold for the UK, “I worry about the country becoming increasingly insular and close-minded, about hard borders, increased brutality and less accountability. Anything that imposes borders will have an impact on freedom and inclusivity, often in ways which disproportionately affect women”. Despite these fears, Mackintosh believes that Europe and the UK are “resilient” and that “art will help us figure out and come to terms with whatever the future holds”.
Isabelle Graeff — artist and photographer
In 2015, following the death of her father, German artist Isabelle Graeff moved to the UK — as she puts it — “in search of identity”. She travelled the length and breadth of the country taking photographs of a place on the verge of great change. The result was her photo series Exit, which she describes as being “more about atmosphere and poetry than political comment”. Graeff notes that in the weeks leading up to and after the referendum was passed, the “atmosphere began to grow anti-European and anti-immigrant”. As Graeff says, “It’s an attitude that is in total opposition to the DNA of the UK as internationality was always a key aspect of British culture. I am shocked that the anti-EU crowd managed to change this”. Graeff regards Brexit to be a “voluntary self-mutilation” and rather poetically compares the UK as it stands to a beloved English holiday spot of a bygone era — “the way it looks now it could end up like Blackpool — the good times are over”. Graeff is nervous about the implementation of borders and the effect that this will have on art making: “The closing of borders was never a precursor to anything good. I experience art as an act of inclusion. Therefore, a decision like Brexit stands in opposition to the nature of art itself.” But, it’s not all bad as the artist believes that “good art can develop as a reaction to this”.
Diana Chire — artist and editor
London-based artist, filmmaker and editor of art newspaper, SheZine, Diana Chire makes work that frequently engages with gender disparity and social inequalities. She believes that Brexit will increase the gap between rich and poor and impact negatively on inclusivity in the art world. “A lot of young artists will be discouraged to go to university, get studios, continue making art after school because costs will skyrocket. The art world will suffer as the only people who will be able to afford to make art will be the super rich, whose subject matter I personally find uninspired and totally out of touch with reality.” Chire — who is Ethiopian-British and was born in Egypt — often explores her dual heritage in her work, and is troubled that Brexit happened “because of an increase in immigration to the UK So many immigrants have contributed so much to their countries. Considering Chire’s interest in activist art — in 2015 she staged a guerrilla exhibition entitled, Take! Eat!, on the doorstep of Frieze Art Fair in London to highlight inequalities in the art world — Chire recognises the urgency of creating art at this time of political and social chaos. “A lot of my favourite works by other artists have been during times of political turmoil. We need to embrace this revolutionary moment!”
Jane and Louise Wilson — Turner Prize-nominated artists
“Beginning our career in the early 1990s, we were fortunate to be invited to Germany, France and Italy. It was great to be given the opportunity to show our work in Europe and to feel part of such an international art community,” admit Jane and Louise Wilson, the Turner Prize-nominated twin sister duo associated with the YBAs. The artists are disheartened about how things have changed. “We grew up feeling we belonged in Europe, and sadly, the UK has become a place which no longer wants to be a part of Europe and this is an action we cannot support.” Earlier this autumn, the Wilsons exhibited their outdoor video installation, Suspended Island, at Newcastle’s Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. The work explored how geographical locations take on “porous identities” —“the image of an island, as something that is at once cut off and yet connected, is particularly resonant as it raises questions about what it means to be British at this moment, and what it means to be Northern”. Born and raised in Newcastle, the Wilson sisters consider the North of England almost to be like “another island with the island of Great Britain”. They believe that Brexit “exposes a divided Britain”, and point out that the nation’s inequalities are not on account of immigration, but because of “growing economic inequality and the public spending cuts that have accompanied austerity.”
A version of this article originally appeared in SLEEK 59.
All images by Isabelle Graeff, taken from her book Exit published by Hatje Cantz.