OFFRET – An Art Intervention on the London Riots

I was recently asked by 6th Hour Productions to be involved in their latest project: OFFRET, part of the Exchange Radical Moments! Live art festival.

OFFRET was planned as an urban intervention about the London riots of August 2011, focusing on the area of Clapham Junction affected during the rioting. On Friday night, a large-scale outdoor projection was presented onto one of the buildings which had been badly affected by arson during the unrest in Clapham Junction, offering a reflection on the multiplicity of perspectives regarding the riots: from local residents to police officers, youths and business owners, and addressing some of it's causes, feelings and consequences.

The other part of the project involved encouraging different sectors of the local community to get together and discuss the unrest caused by the rioting, through a series of workshops. The outcome of these workshops was the production of a fictional newspaper, dated 2013, with fictional stories about the future of Clapham Junction. And this is where I became involved in the project!

As well as the fictional news stories, the members of 6th Hour Productions also wanted to include a few "fun" elements to the paper, and asked me if I could come up with a comic strip that they could include.

There was no specific theme for the comic strip, but I decided that I wanted to work within the themes of the newspaper and the project and attempt to come up with a strip that made reference to the riots...

Click on strip to enlarge