Credit: Helen Snell
In January 2020, the UK became the first and only sovereign nation to leave the European Union (EU), where it had been a member state since 1973. Not even three months later, the world experienced its first global pandemic since the 1918 Spanish Flu, effectively shutting down most of the world.
These two events left a highly divided UK at a turning point—one that has been captured in a new interactive online exhibition by artist Helen Snell.
“Red, Amber, Green Britain” is an online exhibition of work produced by Snell during her tenure as artist in residence at the University of Exeter (UK) from September 2020 to March 2022, as part of the project “Inequality, Identity and the Media in Brexit-COVID-19 Britain.”
The artwork is inspired by images, photographs, screenshots and press cuttings contributed by diverse people throughout that UK that shared their thoughts and feelings about the phenomena of the pandemic and Brexit. Traffic light colors run throughout the visuals to reflect the “stop-start” way many have had to live over the past few years.
“The looping, pulsing animations invoke the prevailing climate of confusion, a culture of distrust, denial, mixed messaging and political U-turns,” said Snell. “Many of the animations feature blanks, blackouts/whiteouts or shadows and absences in flickering colors. The anonymous space, the amber/yellow space becomes a rich metaphor, a kick back against stereotypes.”
Snell and colleagues at the University of Exeter have been investigating how Brexit and coronavirus—and the inequalities associated with these major changes—have been covered by the media and experienced by different communities around the country. Examining these inequalities and their potential effects on social and political polarization, the researchers say, is crucial to understanding how British society will emerge in the future.
Interactive and unique
Red, Amber, Green Britain opens to a black page with nine main categories to explore, covering the spectrum from scientific (“fragile bodies”), to political (“wheel of fortune”), personal (“blue skies”) and more. Each category holds multiple sub-categories within. For example, the Fragile Bodies category comprises Vaccination, PPE, NHS, Death, The Virus, and Testing and Tracing. The curser for the website is a gloved hand holding a swab.
The artwork that makes up the pages is a unique visual history of two confusing, anxious, terrible years. Many of the drawings and animations are inspired by and based on screenshots and memories of media reports and press images, as well as ethnographic research conducted over Zoom during the pandemic.
“This approach has allowed ordinary people to share their own unique stories in innovative ways, and to challenge media and government narratives,” said Joshua Blamire, now at the University of Wolverhampton, who worked with Snell and others on the project. “The creative materials–including drawings, photographs and interview excerpts–bring to life the diverse experiences of people in different places and capture how Brexit and COVID-19 have shaped our lives.”
To accompany the exhibition, people can take part in a unique quiz on a specially designed app, answering questions based on choices they would make when faced with different scenarios—but from the perspective of a character they are assigned at random. The data will be used to create an evolving spatial map, displaying public opinion in real-time.
The project is essentially an online time capsule accessible by anyone—which begs the question, how will people in the year 2122 view the COVID-19 pandemic and our response to it?