State Britain

State Britain is an installation artwork by Mark Wallinger displayed in Tate Britain in January 2007. It is a recreation from scratch of a protest display about the treatment of Iraq, set up by Brian Haw outside Parliament and eventually confiscated by the police. Haw's display contained several hundred items donated by members of the public. As well as continuing the protest, Wallinger's recreation in a different context also brings up questions of authenticity. Wallinger won the Turner Prize in 2007 for this piece.

State Britain is a meticulous recreation of a 40-metre long display which had originally been situated around peace campaigner Brian Haw's protest outside the Houses of Parliament against policies towards Iraq.

The original display consisted of over 600 items, many donations from the public, including paintings, placards, photos of families, banners, posters, graffiti, traffic cones, tarpaulins, temporary fencing and toys. These included a poster, "Blair Lies, Kids Die!", a banner, "Baby Killers", photos of babies maimed and burnt in missile attacks, a statement that parliament spent seven hours discussing the war in Iraq and 700 hours discussing fox-hunting, and a white teddy bear holding a sign, "Bears against bombs". In the centre is an image of Haw fixed to a wooden cross and wearing a T-shirt that says, "Bliar". Also displayed was a Banksy stencil of two soldiers painting a peace sign next to Leon Kuhn's anti-war political caricature 3 Guilty Men, both of which, together with Kuhn's The Proud Parents,Mark Wallinger later displayed in his recreation at the Tate in 2007.

The original display, apart from a three-metre section, was confiscated by the police under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which prohibits unauthorised protests in a specified "exclusion zone" around Parliament.

State Britain was meticulously researched and recreated by project lead Michelle Sadgrove at Mike Smith Studio who sourced 15 artists from varying backgrounds and skillsets to work alongside her over a period of 6 months, exploring participant observation and using hundreds of photographs to match each item to the original protest display. In all, over one thousand five hundred objects were created or sourced for the piece. It cost Tate Britain £90,000 as part of their exhibition programme and was installed inside the Duveen Hall of Tate Britain in January 2007. Signs at all the entrances to the hall warn that the exhibit contains images of extreme human suffering. Michelle has since led teams of technicians installing the work at Mac/Val Paris, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Switzerland, Der Kunstverein Seit 1817 Hamburg, Museum De Pont Tilburg Netherlands and ZKM Karlsruhe Germany.

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