Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Leeds Beckett University
Leave Blank: in collaboration with Patricia Azevedo. Work confronting issues of immigration
Made in collaboration with Professor Patricia Azevedo, of Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil, ‘Leave Blank’ is a provocative long-term project which takes many forms – actions and interventions in the street, a blog, poster works, a three dimensional artwork and an artists’ bookwork. As a proposal of a world in which people can move freely across borders, it is a way of generating conversations about immigration - a subject about which everyone seems to have thoughts, questions and experiences, but which could do with more careful small-scale discussion, particularly in conversations between strangers.
The idea of free movement of peoples is easily dismissed as impractical or naïve. However there are many examples of a naïve idea becoming mainstream. Imagine a conversation in 1860:
A “Women having the vote! Impossible! Half of them can’t read. How would they know what they were voting for?”
B (feigning delight at A’s reasoning) “Good idea. As well as the electoral system, we have to change the education system - and maybe some other things too.”
So (to echo our imaginary interlocutor) as well as taking about a world in which people can move freely across borders, it is imperative that we also talk about the changes that would make such a world possible. ‘Leave Blank’ functions to generate and sustain such discussions.
