Homeland involves thirty four artists commissioned to either make new works or show existing pieces in everyday contexts for the first time including Turner Prize-winner Grayson Perry, celebrated Latino-American artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña and ICA Becks Futures-winner Rosalind Nashashibi. Homeland is presented, as part of the Middle England Series, in association with Arts Council England’s decibel initiative, “raising the voice of culturally diverse arts in Britain”.
Increasingly politicians, advertising and the media refer to ‘Middle England’ as if it were an accepted everyday definition, and yet its underlying criteria remain unclear. The question of who is able to consider themselves a part of Middle England, for example, is ambiguous. One aim of the project is to examine the construction of a cultural hegemony around this peculiarly English, class-bound model of community, with its strong sense of belonging and ownership, and thus its equivalent sense of exclusivity and resistance to change.
Increasingly politicians, advertising and the media refer to ‘Middle England’ as if it were an accepted everyday definition, and yet its underlying criteria remain unclear. The question of who is able to consider themselves a part of Middle England, for example, is ambiguous. One aim of the project is to examine the construction of a cultural hegemony around this peculiarly English, class-bound model of community, with its strong sense of belonging and ownership, and thus its equivalent sense of exclusivity and resistance to change.
