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STEVE MCQUEEN

wordsby nicholas brown photoscourtesy marian goodman gallery

Steve McQueen is an unlikely political figure. The Amsterdam-based English artist, known best for his short, gallery-oriented film and video works, recently found himself at the centre of nationalist tensions in England and Ireland over his first major motion picture, Hunger (2008). The biopic follows the lives of several occupants of the Maze, a Northern Irish prison home to substantial numbers of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The film takes place during the period of conflict known as “The Troubles” during which Irish Republicans used campaigns of violence and intimidation to force secession from Great Britain (which was using its own immoral tactics). The film takes up the conflicts that emerged in the Maze when Margaret Thatcher’s government refused to grant Irish paramilitaries the status of political prisoners, reinforcing their public perception as terrorists. An escalating series of acts of civil disobedience by the prisoners began, including ‘the blanket protest’ (in which prisoners shunned common prison attire, consenting only to cover themselves with sheets), ‘the dirty protest’ (in which feces, urine, food and blood were smeared wherever possible to demoralize prison personnel), and finally hunger strikes. Through these protests the prisoners waged political war within the walls of the Maze that echoed the Republican efforts of their countrymen in the outside world.