Taking the News Into Our Own Lives And Back Again: This Is What I Think News Is

Above the work of Molly Crabapple  who is an artist working in reportage

Above Reportage from Kenyan artist, Mercy Kagia

How do we begin to understand and reach for a better future, for more people, more of the time? When democracy feels postponed, pushed out, uncomfortably absent, when 10 million people who are eligible to vote aren’t registered?

Below the work of Cardiff Urban Sketcher, Dan Peterson, Cardiff Wales

 

 

We need to grow and expand our ideas and capacities, at every level in Britain and stop protecting the strong at the expense of those made weak by this system. At the moment, although we have success it’s only one type of success in business and in culture, based on an asset lock and licensing, rather than seeing every part of society, every part of the economy as part of the potential of the UK.

The news media sits inside the idea of a gaming and gambling Britain at the moment, hurtling around social media platforms, like a pinball but doing little more than describing the many iterations of the asset lock.  We hear too many stories about the strong (and successful) and so many equally repetitive stories about the weak (and failing).

Above: Urban Sketcher James Hobbs beautiful line drawing of Facebook HQ

To understand, appreciate and imagine a richer future for everyone we need to refresh our eyes: they’re baggy with consuming too much of the same things. Like a biome we need  a climate where we can flourish, we need diversity and detail: can art help in this?

I think democracy is in casualty, it’s holding hands with an underclass who’ve been excluded from a meaningful life or way of living and we haven’t got a media that will show us why we need to hold powerful forces, individuals and institutions to account. We have created an always going back, always looking back to a feudal system of ownership: but in allowing baronies to flourish in the new markets around technology, employment, child care, healthcare, and the care of the elderly and disability we have underserved everyone.