Banner Drop on Hackney Marshes

The banners suggest ways in which people learn and the significance of different forms of knowledge. The light green banner implies subjective experiential knowledge, through icon symbols suggesting ways to learn through personal failure. The appliqued text is an incitement to question how we have acquired our own knowledge.

The orange banner connotes ancient knowledge through a simple juxtaposition. Whilst we are currently experiencing a confused and commodified relationship to the land in precarious contemporary society, there is also a resurgence of desires to learn about the properties of plants. Perhaps wisdom relating to the natural environment, like plant identification, could enhance our understanding of the ecosystem and how we fit into it.

Throughout human history counter-culture movements have found ways to spread knowledge and ideas through music, speech and dance. Gatherings where people can experience deep affecting sounds and poetry together create an environment of metaphysical contemplation and emotional power. The pink banner relates to soundsystem culture which originated in 1950s Jamaica. The movement became politicised in the preceding decades as a way for Jamaicans to reference and share their cultural history, strengthening communities with ideas and feelings communicated through loud music.

The power of the media and its ability to alter public opinion through subjective journalism is widely accepted, but perhaps we still do not question our sources of information enough. A news report is supposed to be impartial knowledge transfer but when we look in more detail at the context, we often find corporations, agendas and coded discrimination. It is possible for a news article to be more of a fictional narrative and a description of a person can bare little resemblance to an individual’s true character. Recent political events in the UK have highlighted the detrimental and confusing effects of short sited biased news reports and the importance of evaluating context.  Until we have a truly democratic and impartial media, public awareness of the manipulation which occurs is vital.

The turquoise banner includes a screen-printed representation of an Arecibo message created by Frank Drake and Carl Sagan to be broadcast into space via radio waves in 1974. The message contained information about the human race and our environment, such as DNA and the common particles on earth.  The image is overlaid with stenciled symbols and shorthand from modern casual communication; a reflection on the changing role that technology plays in the way we receive and interpret knowledge and kinds of language.