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'Genoa – “We Are History” ' by Boudicca

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Zoe Broach and Brian Kirkby of Boudicca have never been content to go with the flow. Their Political Fashion film documents some of their experience as anti-capitalist protestors at the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa, where the power of the events they witnessed was in turn the central inspiration for their Spring/Summer 2002 collection ‘Transition (Corporate Deserter)’. The film documents police brutality while the resulting collection examined the quashing of creativity by multinational corporations in exactly the same manner. Boudicca’s film stands ultimately as a harrowing document of the nature of the society in which we live - 'It pays my way, but it corrodes my soul.'

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8 comments

  • VikramKansara
    14:21 21 Mar 2008
    The state's attempts to maintain a monopoly on violence are always sickening to behold. But being "anti-globalization" is the antithesis of being progressive. It smacks of a selfish, reactionary, Eurocentric fear of change. In my mind, it's not about opposing globalization - but shaping it. The truth is, greater international exchange has brought untold opportunity and prosperity to the "rest of the world." Ask the software programmer in Bangalore what he thinks of globalization. Ask the laborer who picks roses in Kenya's Rift Valley. For them globalization is not exploitation - it's opportunity. At the end of the day - the views of the Genoa protesters are closer to those of the security services who are abusing them than they are to citizens of the Third World whose interests they often claim to represent. Thankfully, the dialogue has moved on since 2001 and consumers and corporations alike have got on with the job of shaping globalization - not rejecting it - through intelligent solutions like Fair Trade Certification. And by the way, many multinational corporations are in fact funding and promoting creativity - not because they are some kind of patron saints - but because creativity is good for their brands and their businesses.
  • GalileosUniverse
    14:24 21 Mar 2008
    ..... and what is even more scary and a total nightmare that is slowly becoming reality as '1984' did is how the big conglomerates ... corporations ... multinationals are ABSOLUTELY willing to ally themselves with tyrants, despots,megalomaniacs , religious fanatics who crave not only to have absolute power over people's right to be free to chose .... but who also want to have the reign and control over the economic wealth of their subjects for personal gain ....
    Conglomerates have indeed openly and unashamedly signed a pact with the DEVIL !! ... they are all becoming to cosy with each other in order to enjoy together the ultimate price !... absolute wealth of grotesque and evil proportions .... if just because GREED seems to TOTALLY unite them all .....
    Somehow it all reminds me of an Orson Welles film where a man was looking down from the top of building watching humans walking by ... down on the crowded streets .... and to him they were just crushable ants ! .... they were all so insignificant to him and totally indispensable .... because he had absolute power over them ... so he thought ! .... and he could manipulate them to his advantage and they were just useful to him as long as they were there to build and cement his ruthless empire ! ....
    CONGLOMERATES and TYRANTS do seem to have something in common now days and that .. ' Ain't ... LOVE ' !
  • avventura
    14:30 21 Mar 2008
    Great stuff. The perfect counterexample to the Jane Audas essay about leaving the serious stuff to the grown ups. What is really interesting is how seeing the action through the "eye" of a fashion designer _makes_ it fashion imagery. The stills would make a perfectly viable editorial...
  • marko
    17:45 22 Mar 2008
    The trend now is towards glocalization: local works with the global agenda, which in turn stimulates small producers. However, a big problem is the US subsidy of cotton that produces sever economic hardship for cotton growers outside the US.
  • harley
    12:50 23 Mar 2008
    This makes me so sad ,the editing and soundtrack bring home the personal loss for that childs family and the human cost of this.
    It is easy to forget that is someones son lying there ,shot by someone elses son. Guilt and sadness for two more families both who thought they were doing the right thing.
    The whole thing is tragic and lamentable.
    The only people who are unaffected are the leaders of the G8 who I imagine must rationale it as regretable but nesessary. Tragic.
  • Sandrine
    13:20 23 Mar 2008
    A perfect example of Audas' point, I'd have thought: in comparison with their peers, Boudicca ARE the grown ups.
  • marko
    16:07 25 Mar 2008
    They used rubber bullets!
  • MarkPavey
    14:57 28 Mar 2008
    Not to shoot somebody in the head they didn't!!!

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