These works look at what happens to protest when it appears on screen. Television makes protest, an often messy and chaotic event, into something sensational. Since its inception, artists have brought images from news broadcasts to the gallery wall. As the artist Richard Hamilton said of his work Kent State: ‘It had been on my mind that there might be a subject staring me in the face from the TV screen’.
Many of these pieces explore what it means to view world events through a medium that gives us no immediate opportunity to change or physically participate in those events. They ask how involved we can be when looking at distant scenes of violence or social injustice. While it is common to question whether the mass exposure of conflict and suffering can do any good, the screen has arguably played a dramatic role in shaping the nature of protest.
