Her brief: travel around the UK and create a politically and geographically balanced artwork about the general election campaign.
English photographer Joanne Coates has spent the past few weeks following politicians as they campaigned, attended rallies, election speeches and meetings, and spoke to community groups and voters on the streets.
In addition to collecting video clips and audio memos, the self-proclaimed “working-class visual artist” has also taken snapshots of her travels with a 1960s Rolleiflex film camera given to her by her grandfather, which you should take a look at.
“It’s small, quiet and allows for intimate moments with people. People naturally relax in front of it,” she told AFP in Belfast, the latest stop on a dizzying tour of every corner of the UK.
“I look for small poetic moments, in-between spaces that tell something deeper about what’s happening in a place,” she says, constantly looking around her, searching for revealing subjects.
– ‘Honesty Box’ –
On her travels, she always carries a pink ballot box, which she calls an “honesty box,” encouraging voters to anonymously submit their thoughts, poems, or drawings about democracy, voting, and general elections.
The opposition Labour Party is tipped to win, but Coates – from Yorkshire – says she is “trying to see everyone in an open and equal way and approaching everything without prejudice”.
Her participation in the Ynys Mon constituency on the Welsh island of Anglesey, one of the most hotly contested marginal seats in the UK, gave her a greater insight into the issues facing voters.
Three parties, Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, Labour and the Conservatives, all have a chance of winning there on Thursday.
Coates attended a bilingual Welsh-English church service before visiting the site of a controversial planned nuclear power station, which could bring much-needed jobs to a poor area. He rounded off the day with a trip to a deer farm.
“I had very different, sometimes surreal experiences with each of the candidates in one day and understood why it is such an exciting election battle,” she said.
On other days she was in Orkney, the remote islands off the north coast of Scotland, where votes are collected by boat.
She met candidates from all political stripes in their home constituencies in England, including Speaker of the House Lindsay Hoyle and Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
– ‘Small gestures’ –
In Northern Ireland, she noticed how landscapes and streets are marked and politicised with colours, flags and murals that convey pro-British or pro-Irish sentiments of unity.
“Some of the issues here are similar to the rest of the UK, but as in Scotland, England and Wales, there are also many unique regional differences,” she said.
At a youth centre in Belfast, she sat in on workshops and took notes as young people discussed issues such as mental health, drug addiction and paramilitary violence, before listening to candidates cast their votes in an election campaign.
She later watched a live-streamed debate between Northern Irish party leaders from a studio, looking at both the audience and the politicians.
“I look at the little gestures people make before they go on air, or while someone else is speaking,” she said.
After Thursday, when her “meeting” ends, Coates expects to complete her “multi-layered” work. The work will be included in the Parliamentary Art Collection in the months following the election.
“All the elements together influence and inspire what happens when I’m back in my studio,” she said.
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