Highly apposite video a reflection on society’s attitude to politics

Left Right and Centre by Cornelia Parker

Ulster Museum, Belfast Permanent collection

Some months ago, the Ulster Museum made an important acquisition — they purchased a short video piece, Left Right and Centre by Cornelia Parker, with a running time of just over nine minutes.

I wonder how many of you reading this have actually seen it... video pieces tend not to be viewed as often as fixed, or more permanent pieces, in gallery spaces. This, however, is an outstanding example of an artist reflecting society’s attitude to politics, not just at the time of its execution but now, today, a week after yet another general election. This is art making a very public statement — this is an artist speaking for the people.

The video, which can also be viewed on YouTube, was made two years ago and when you see it you wonder why we never listened to what Cornelia Parker was saying.

Cornelia is an amazing artist of her generation. We really don’t have enough space to reflect on her career to date or look at her most famous pieces, known to many of you interested in contemporary art in the UK.

Cornelia, who has regularly been exhibited worldwide to great acclaim, was shortlisted for the Turner Prize, and is currently Honorary Professor at the University of Manchester and Honorary Fellow of Queen Elizabeth Hall, Oxford.

Little known fact: since the 2001 election, the speaker’s advisory committee on works of art has appointed an official election artist. Cornelia was the first woman to take the role.

Left Right and Centre is her response to one of the most important political events in recent history — the 2017 general election — and in it she confronts her fears for democracy in a direct and almost elemental way.

During the election she made two pieces, and she says that she had to represent the voices — often anxious, fearful, or angry — of the people she had encountered during her time observing the campaign.

“I was bombarded by so much emotion and visual information I had to have sound, and sensation,” she said.

The video is a beautiful and simple piece, an extremely effortless viewing which uses very common cinema graphic language. It is not pretentious or over-complicated. Its style is gothic, dark, moody and at times, threatening and powerful — yet beautiful in its narrative flow.

It is described as: “Filmed in the chamber of the House of Commons at night, and it shows that room, usually seen bursting with combative argument, as empty and ghostly. Newspapers, piled up on the central table and over the dispatch boxes, are gradually disturbed by the movement of a drone as it flies through the chamber. Eventually they are blown on to the benches and floor. The camera slowly withdraws through the door at the end of the chamber, fade to black.”

This is a masterclass in style, narrative and time-based media.