Wednesday Walkthrough: Meriem Bennani: Life on the CAPS

6 Jul 2022 2-3.30pm

Credit: Meriem Bennani: Party on the CAPS, installation view at Nottingham Contemporary, 2022. Courtesy Nottingham Contemporary. Photo: Stuart Whipps.

Overview

In this walkthrough, Sophie Fuggle explores the trope of the 'prison island' in popular culture and its role in speculative and science fiction. Is it possible to imagine a world without prisons and other forms of detention or will they continue to be a central feature of our existence over the next fifty, one, two hundred years? We will think about how Meriem Bennani takes up these questions in the current exhibition, challenging dominant narratives which focus on individual survivors seeking to escape. Instead, the island is re-imagined from within as a site of community and creativity as well as a place where deeper existential questions are posed by its protagonists. We will spend some time looking at the two installations – ‘Party on the CAPS’ and ‘Life on the CAPS’ before reconvening for a group discussion about the themes and imagery found in the videos.

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