For the Sake of Transparency
October 2023
Installation
Deaths by Welfare
Deaths by Welfare
In the UK, Civil Service documents are archived to preserve national memory and provide insights into Government mechanisms for transparency purposes. The narratives of people on welfare have been either instrumentalised or obscured to further austerity. The lives of our most vulnerable communities, including migrants and those on welfare, are subject to the whims of bureaucracy. These communities and their allies appeal for transparency in the moment as urgent lifesaving measures to no avail. Decades later, archives reveal that civil actors were aware of the violence of bureaucracy- but at this stage transparency has come far too late.
This begs the question: what was the purpose of transparency if all we can do is look back helplessly?
For the Sake of Transparency explores narratives around the condition No Recourse to Public Funds found in archives, revealing narratives archived from behind the bureaucratic curtain. They are juxtaposed against appeals to suspend No Recourse to Public Funds in Parliament during the COVID-19 pandemic to no avail.
Transcript
This begs the question: what was the purpose of transparency if all we can do is look back helplessly?
For the Sake of Transparency explores narratives around the condition No Recourse to Public Funds found in archives, revealing narratives archived from behind the bureaucratic curtain. They are juxtaposed against appeals to suspend No Recourse to Public Funds in Parliament during the COVID-19 pandemic to no avail.
Transcript