Outdoor print commission exploring print as protest and Bristol’s punk history.
“Punk is a discordant cluster of promises, proliferating forms of actions, feelings, events and persons.”
Punk is a Moving Target, Mimi Thi Nguyen and Golnar Nikpour, 2013
Artist Phoebe Davies has collaborated with students from UWE Bristol BA(Hons) Graphic Design to develop a new print installation for Moving Targets, Arnolfini’s summer programme. Apathy’s a Drag is inspired by students’ personal experiences of activism, subculture and self-organisation.
Sharing ways of living, working and collaborating, the group explored print as protest, DIY communities and archives to create a layered text piece. The installation on this hoarding will build and evolve through intermittent fly posting throughout the summer.
All print was written and co-authored by Gina Bates, Will Bindley, Francesca Bryan, Tom CB, Kirtis Clarke, Phoebe Davies, Eleanor Elliott-Rathbone, Harry Irons, Jade Innes, Vanessa Periam, Callum Rothwell, Laura Simonati, Evgeny Smagin, Ruby Tier, Emile Toledo, Jack Waghorn, Erik Winterburn, Abi Willmington, and Tom Young. With thanks to Conway and Young and Bristol Archive Records.
The artwork can be found at the rear of Arnolfini’s building outside the entrance of Bush House.
UWE Graphic Design (BA) explores the changing concept of design and the role of the designer in society and the professional world; investigating the function of print in the public domain, as an indicator of current cultural thinking and as a catalyst for social, cultural and political change.
Phoebe Davies grew up well mainstream, she was not punk. She spent her teens living in Bristol as a regular at Oceana nightclub with an unhealthy obsession with Robbie Williams. These days she is an artist, producer and activist. Her work takes many forms, including installation, print, performance and video. She often works with and in response to individuals, communities and locations, exploring perceived social frameworks and generating work through collaboration and collective action.
Recently her work has been shown at Tate Britain and Tate Modern (London), Whitechapel Gallery (London), Serpentine (London), Fierce Festival (Birmingham), Art Licks Weekend (London), Steirischer Herbst (Graz, AUT), Assembly (Portland, USA) and SA-UK SEASONS 2015 (Johannesburg, ZA). She is an Artsadmin artist and is part of the Bedfellows research collective. She is currently a Social Practice Fellow on the British Council’s International Cultural Exchange US Program.
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The project is supported by UWE.
