13 Jan — 6 Jul 2016 Free

Working in collaboration with artist Harold Offeh, students from Westminster Academy investigated the structures of power in school and society.

Over nine weeks the group reflected on their experiences of school and their relationship to authority. These ideas have been channelled into Everything is TV, a 10-minute programme that directly addresses the question of Who has the Power? through gesture, performance and text. The short programme takes cues from magazine-style television such as Andy Warhol’s TV and early MTV.

Following the programme, the young people co-hosted a workshop for 18 trainee teachers at Westminster Academy. The group presented their manifesto for change and together with the teachers workshopped three key ideas: performing power; testing and the curriculum; and dealing with racist and sexist discrimination.

Who Has the Power? was part of the Serpentine Youth Forum, a work-experience programme where young people work with artists and curators to discuss issues that are important to them, develop a creative response and create a platform for change.

In winter 2016, the Serpentine Youth Forum was: Adam, Alla, Alex, Annika, Ben, Betty, Genan, Harold, Hussein, Ibrahim, Ksenija, Mohamad, Natalia, Noorah, Saffiyah, Zinia

Harold Offeh

Harold Offeh is an artist working in a range of media including performance, video, photography, learning and social arts practice in a career spanning 20 years. He is the 2018-19 Serpentine Family Programme Artist in Residence

Offeh has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. In 2017, he exhibited as part of Untitled: art on the conditions of our time at New Art Exchange in Nottingham, UK and Tous, des sangs-mêlés at MAC VAL, Museum of Contemporary Art in Val de Marne, France. In 2017, he’s been Open House residency artist at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge and a summer artist in residence at Wysing Arts Centre. In 2018, forthcoming projects include, The Real Thing: Towards a Live Authentic Archive as part of Material Experiments at The Tetley in Leeds. Night Assembly: Towards a Live Queer Archive for Nuit Blanche 2018 in Toronto, Canada. He studied Critical Fine Art Practice at The University of Brighton and did MA Fine Art Photography at the Royal College of Art. He lives in Cambridge and works in London and Leeds, UK where he is currently a Reader in Fine Art and Leeds Beckett University.

 

Curated by:

Alex Thorp, Curator, Education

Ben Messih, Assistant Curator, Education

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