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Jeremy Deller 

Jeremy Deller recreates rituals and historic events using people. His raw materials are people and history. Folk and culture attracts his interest because it combines wit, inventiveness, and creativity in a way that distinguishes it clearly from mass culture. Deller works as an assembler of components, as ‘director’ of collective actions, organising parades that reconstruct historical events, making films, curating exhibitions and intervening in public space. 

'Procession 2009' was a march Deller created in manchester. Commissioned to stage a opening ceremony for the Manchester International Festival, he created a parade in which all members of the community had a place. He wanted to grab all aspects of life in Manchester to put in a parade. Comprising over twenty elements from all the boroughs of Greater Manchester, Deller describes the event as a celebration of 'Northern social surrealism'. The parade involved music and different groups of people, some that knew each other and some that did not, but they all had a common interest. It had everything, from a group of emos and goths, it had a gang of unrepentant smokers puffing away under a banner designed by David Hockney, it had a Hindu piping band, a steel band, you name it. As always, keeps things constantly surprising: at one point the procession unexpectedly becomes a cortege, with a series of hearses bearing tributes to lost, legendary nightclubs in Manchester. The parade sounded like a confident celebration of a city grown-up enough to see itself sidelong and take the mickey out of itself. Deller claims to be fascinated by parades because "they hold up a mirror to a town and become a self portrait of a time and place". 

"I like what has happened in Manchester, historically, politically, musically, and I've always enjoyed being there – so when I was asked to make a public artwork for Manchester International Festival in 2009, I assembled a procession of the city's people and their activities. It was mostly a celebration of public space and the people occupying it: buskers, smokers, car modifiers, The Big Issue sellers and so on. One of the elements was Valerie's Snack Bar, this café in Bury Market, which just seemed to be a great gathering place for OAPs. The snack bar was almost exactly replicated and put on the back of a lorry and taken for a spin. As with any procession, there are lots of contradictory elements: some are traditional, others are contemporary or even futuristic. I wanted in a way to try and make something a bit like a procession you would see on 'The Simpsons', a sort of social surrealist event full of bizarre, funny, wrong-seeming things." - Jeremy Deller. 

'We're Here Because We're Here (2016)' was a national artwork by Jeremy Deller that took place on 1st July 2016 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. He collaborated with the national theatre to make it happen. 

They had over 1600 people aged 15 - 50 (as that was the age range of people that were killed at the battle) to dress up as soldiers 1st July and walk around contemporary Britain. He created a mock up of how it could look and used photographs of soldiers relaxing and transplanted them onto very normal, almost banal scenes of British everyday life to create these strange visual jolts. He wanted the men to look out of place, strange and unexpected. He took this kinetic living memorial to places that did not even exist in 1916, avoiding churches, castles, places that were associated with the war. Instead, he had soldiers in places like shopping malls, Burger King, Super Markets.. places that were awkward because he wanted to push what was acceptable. Whilst in act, if the soldiers felt like they had a connection with someone they would give them a card with the name of a real soldier, with their dates that they died etc which I think is an incredibly moving thing to do and is almost like giving out a small tomb stone. He also had them reenacting the soldiers singing 'we're here because we're here' which is also a very powerful act and must have affected a lot of people emotionally. 

 

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Photograph from 'Procession'

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Photograph from 'Procession'

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Photograph from 'We're Here Because We're Here'

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Photograph from 'We're Here Because We're Here'

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