James Suret

 SquareMileHenge is an archival project which attempts to give space to an audience to enable a subjective view of our current situation and system. By doing so it might be possible to realise modes of alternative existence and by populating the consciousness with these ideas it may go on to facilitate change. I do not seek to put forward a speculative future, but an alternative present. In a time when our communal memory of history is becoming more singular and less concretely defined, through the mediation, consumption and the ability of the average person to customise their own personal narrative. I use the Henge as a metaphor of a post-historic monument, where we can view our current present as a speculative past. Providing space to view an alternative.The work is disseminated through several means which naturally call each other in to question, challenging our perception of what is true and what is not.

The work is political in the sense of Chantel Mouffe’s definition by which it challenges the uncontested hegemonic position of our liberal system, it is antagonising the dominant consensus and forming a space for debate. As with any societal system ours is built on a history and actions which predate this moment, by interrupting this history and by portraying our reality as an ambiguous past, there is an opportunity to rewrite and reorder the sediment which forms the bedrock on any given order.

The submission to antagonism is not to lose hope of a state of utopia but completely the opposite as Clare Bishop, Rosalyn Deutsche and Jacques Rancière argue, what constitutes a well-functioning democracy, and the pursuit of a future utopia is a proactive discussion between all peoples in which there is a need for a level of conflict and division.

James Suret: MA Creative Enterprise