The Seeds of Brexit 2020

About this project

PIECE Studio created a series the “Seeds of Brexit” posters as a response to the results of the Brexit vote to remove the UK out of Europe.

Images of Formula One race car drivers  are combined with quotes from either UK Politicians or UK Musicians from roughly the same time period. The juxtaposition of the images and words create an alternate reality and different emotions. 

Growing up in Wales and now living in the US, the Brexit narrative became an emotional rollercoaster, and living outside the UK afforded PIECE Studio the luxury of having both physical and emotional distance to address what it felt like to have the UK turn away from Europe.

Formula One Racing drivers were my heroes, and they were idealized in the same way that people identify with super heroes today. Each poster either has quotes taken from Conservative politicians and musicians from roughly the same time periods (apart from P.J. Harvey who is a contemporary artist). 

The politicians and political discourse was a troubling time for the UK and being in South Wales was more intense because many of the Conservative Government’s legislative decisions had serious and disastrous effects on the Welsh people and the Welsh Economy.

There were massive riots in Bristol and throughout the UK. There were strikes, power-cuts and unemployment that negatively impacted working class communities.

Sadly, history has a way of repeating itself, and here we are in 2020 where we see the UK turning its back on Europe and the global rise of Fascism and White Supremacy.

The poster series are printed on newsprint as a 16-page newspaper. The newspaper pages can be hung to create an exhibition where the individual pages become posters