Peasants Revolt Now!

Prayer Room

01/03 - 19/05/2024

Curated by Dinosaur Kilby

You’re in a forest after a storm. Broken beech tree branches lay at your feet. 

When I first saw Black Lodge Press’ banner reading Peasants Revolt Now! in 2023, it resonated with me, because this show has been in my head for a long time. Now, developing Prayer Room with Ishmail and Leah has allowed it to happen. 

What does ‘neo-medievalism’ mean? You see it within popular culture, video games like Skyrim and The Witcher, TV like Game of Thrones and Vikings, you know the stuff. You see it within contemporary art practice, too. The early Middle Ages, or the ‘Dark Age’, was from 476-1000 AD. Five-hundred-and-twenty-four years of mud.

A medieval peasant worked 150 days a year. You work 250. We’re grinding into a latepostcapitalismclimatecatastrophehellscape, and the mud’s up to our knees. If you focus and lay in bed long enough, you can feel it, the shape of it… but what are you doing about it? Think of what you could do with those 100 days. Maybe that’s a capitalist mindset.

Everyone always looks to the Enlightenment (1685-1815) or the Italian Renaissance (1340-1550) for inspiration. The En-light-enment, when the light was literally turned on -  the Dark Ages were no more. I think there’s a lot we can learn from the dark. I’m scared of the dark, everyone is. If they say they're not, they're fucking lying. Put them in a forest at 2am in rural Derbyshire in November and see who’s scared. 

I’m reading Riddley Walker, a science fiction novel by Russell Hoban at the moment. I meant to read it years ago, and it feels like I already did, but there’s this great part:

Time back way way back befor peopl got clever they had the 1st knowing. They los it when they got the clevverness and now the clevverness is gone as wel.

Every thing has a shape and so does the nite only you cant see the shape of nite nor you cant think it. If you put your self right you can know it. Not with knowing in your head but with the 1st knowing.

The devolution of the UK is imminent. We’re going to break apart and return to regional governance. 7 kingdoms, 7 different ways of doing it. 39 counties, 39 different ways of doing it. London, more specifically Whitehall, can’t continue.  

It’s coming and this land is haunted - this wretched rock. 

There’s an inability to change, or maybe change is just not possible. It’s said that change comes slowly, but that’s not good enough. Peasants, revolt now?

All images by Stuart Whipps

List of Works

Amartey Golding, Iron Man, 2018, Matte UV print on photo paper, bulldog clips

Campbell Mcconnell, The Alchemist, 2022, Soft ground etching

Emii Alrai, Fléche, The Courtship of Giants, 2022, Steel

Becky Tucker, Streamer, 2023, Glazed stoneware

Black Lodge Press, Peasants Revolt Now! 2023, Polyester mesh banner, bungee cords, galvanised steel

Rose Hedy Squires, 

Mist descendant

Shifting silhouettes in the field

Capillaries over and over.

This church an aisle of trodden 

ground

Walls - green - stand tall, wet to the

touch

Press our bodies against

enlightened growth

Roll ourselves up into each other

And from the altar the voice is moss

2024

Glazed ceramic, solder, stained, glass, pewter, copper, beech, bluefaced Leicester fleece.

Joe Moss, Rocinante on Cardbird 3, 2024, Mosaic, cardboard collage, carpet, aluminium v slot

Campbell Mcconnell, Maude, Fire bellow and Arnold beckoning, 2023, Looped motion capture animation

Fi Sonola, Constant, 2022, Acrylic and EVA on canvas

Uma Breakdown, There is an exhibition In front of the prison, 2024, Full colour matte gicleé print, modelled hand