In a career spanning over five decades, Peter Kennard has used photomontage to create some of our most powerful visual expressions of rebellion and political dissent. Those unfamiliar with his name will undoubtedly recognise his work; his 2013 collaboration with Cat Phillipps, entitled Photo Op, featured a grinning Tony Blair taking a selfie in front of a fiery explosion, and made headlines for its searing critique of Blair’s complicity in the Iraq War. In a new exhibition at Edinburgh’s Palestine Museum, Kennard turns his focus to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
In Kennard’s trademark style the pieces feature imagery pulled together from different sources and collaged to create a single image. He uses motifs that have come to symbolise the genocide for Western audiences; an emaciated torso, piled body bags, a child’s face behind a sniper’s aim. These are juxtaposed with the Labour Party logo, the IDF insignia and the flags of Britain, the US, and Israel, to a simple but striking effect.
Not behind glass, but hanging from translucent fishwire against a board in the middle of the museum’s main exhibition hall, Kennard succeeds in confronting his viewer with the causal relationship between our governments and these horrifying scenes. Through pieces like Running Out, in which the Palestinian flag is buried by sand in an hourglass, and Palestine, in which the red of the flag has already half bled out, Kennard imbues the exhibition with the urgency of action; time is running out to help Palestinians.
Kennard’s attachment is undoubtedly an important publicity boost for the museum, which is the first dedicated to Palestinian art in Europe and is entirely volunteer-run. The public debut attracted almost 200 visitors, among them the artist himself, a clear indication of his personal investment in the subject matter. The museum in turn is the perfect backdrop for the exhibition. Placed alongside the wealth of Palestinian-made art, Kennard’s perspective becomes part of a broader narrative that acknowledges the pain of Palestinians but refuses to define them by it.
The exhibition will run until 31st August, coinciding with the Fringe, and is free to enter.
Press images courtesy of Palestine Museum Scotland.