This publication, co-published by The Showroom and Chateau International, takes as a starting point Khan-Dossos’ ongoing research into the complex context of the UK government’s development of pre-crime and surveillance policies, in particular Prevent*, questioning the politics of representation and the positioning of care that the strategies around those policies generate.
Texts in the book include new essays by Navine G. Khan-Dossos, Rob Faure Walker and Lily Hall alongside contributing writers who have engaged in written dialogues: Sadia Habib, Hassan Vawda, Rachel Coldicutt, Tarek Younis, Shezana Hafiz & Azfar Shafi from advocacy organisation CAGE, and William Skeaping from Extinction Rebellion. A text by Alexander Massouras, revised from his exhibition review of There Is No Alternative for Art Monthly in 2019, is also included. The book is designed by Mark Hurrell.
At the core of the project at The Showroom was the act of questioning what an alternative to Prevent could look like, both visually and sociologically. Working with philosophical principles of image and space-building from the tradition of aniconism within Islamic art – where it becomes possible to represent the un-representable through analogies with geometry – Navine G. Khan-Dossos’ hand-painted and collaboratively produced murals explored ideas of authenticity, appropriation, positionality and the possibility of generating new visual languages in the context of transgressive political and conceptual frameworks.
This publication forms part of the trans-disciplinary programme Radical Citizenship, a cooperative project between The Showroom and Goethe-Institut London.
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Published by Chateau International, 22.5 × 15 cm, softcover, 978-1-8380450-0-5