Habeas Corpus
This playful series critiques British Immigration Removal Centres through screen prints styled as vintage travel posters, noting detainee numbers and site capacities. Institutional colours evoke public architecture and furniture, with the prints reimagined as flags.
Screen prints - Snowdon Cartridge Paper, 297 x 420mm, limited editioned series, 2018- ongoing.
Flags - 150 x 100 cm, semi transparent cotton, 2018- ongoing.
noun: habeas corpus
a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, especially to secure the person's release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention.
the legal right to apply for a habeas corpus writ. LATIN, literally ‘you shall have the body (in court)’.
Habeas Corpus is a limited edition print series playfully commenting upon British Immigration Removal Centres.
As I’ve been researching into Immigration Removal Centres in the UK I’ve been struck by how they’re advertised- a bit like a holiday. As such, I chose to base this body of work on vintage British travel posters. These centres are built to “category B closed prison” standards, defined for those who “do not require maximum security, but for whom escape still needs to be made very difficult.” Asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants (who have not been formally charged for a crime) are locked up in prison-like buildings. Currently, less than half of those detained in removal centres are eventually deported. The rest are integrated back into the community, albeit having suffered physical and psychological trauma due to their enforced imprisonment (without an end date) and the increased risk and reality of abuse whilst in the system.
The prints make reference to vintage travel posters, each recording the capacity and number of detainees at each location. Colours allude to institutional architecture and mass produced furniture found in public buldings. The screen prints have been reimagined as a series of flags which occupy the space.
Habeas Corpus flag series have been exhibited locally and nationally including; Manchester Cathedral, The Travelling Gallery (Scotland), The Briggait (Glasgow).
