Benjamin Haizalden

Life During Wartime (Don’t Worry About The Government)

"The character of our country will be defined by how we write the next chapter of British liberty – by whether we do so in a way that respects and builds on our traditions, and progressively adds to and enlarges rather then reduces the sphere of freedom." Gordon Brown.

The war on terror has been an effective one. It has seen the removal of some basic civil liberties in the name of protecting what one might call the ‘greater good’.

Within the United Kingdom there are around a 100 times more CCTV cameras than any other European Country. How can it be that the average citizen is captured on CCTV 300 times a day but they are not permitted to photograph a police officer without the possibility of arrest?

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 has given the government and the police force powers that while useful, in the detection of terrorist activities, are easily manipulated to serve any purpose. There have been many instances of their use outside of the prescribed circumstances for their use. It is these changes to our parameters of freedom that can be viewed as terrorism’s greatest success.

A culture of apathy and paranoia pervades.

The images presented here were produced in parks and leisure spaces in Bristol, England.

It is my intention that these images reveal signs of these changes within the vernacular. That the signs of this shift will present them-selves in the everyday experience not the grand gesture. Furthermore that we see metaphors within the landscape for battlegrounds, fortifications, sites of uprisings. Through these images we should endeavour to explore the relationship between the fiction that is created by visual references & metaphors and the ‘reality’ that is simultaneously presented in the photographic description of the parks and leisure spaces. 

“You should dream more, Mr Wormold. Reality in our century is not something to be faced.”  Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene.