BANNER FOR INTERACTIVE ARTS

​Large-scale banner installation — Manchester School of Art, 2020

Text-based installation responding to transition, uncertainty and collective pause.
This work was created for a group exhibition at Manchester School of Art marking the completion of the BA (Hons) Interactive Arts course. The newly opened art school building features expansive reception spaces, and I proposed creating a large-scale banner to occupy this transitional public area.


The banner carried a quote from Tony Eve, founder of the Interactive Arts course, originally spoken to me during a difficult moment while studying. Removed from its original context and re-presented at scale, the text became both personal and collective — addressing doubt, endurance and continuation at a point of shared transition.


The exhibition opening never took place. As the work was installed, Covid-19 was beginning to take hold and the UK entered its first national lockdown. In this altered context, the quote took on an expanded meaning, resonating far beyond its initial intention and speaking directly to a moment of collective uncertainty.
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Rather than functioning as a celebratory conclusion, the banner became a marker of interruption and pause — a piece that existed on the threshold between completion and suspension, before the work could be publicly gathered around.