I'd forgotten this piece of experimental arts journalism from '04. Peter Lewis and Shezad Dawood curated "We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us" at the Redux Gallery, Spitalfields. Peter, Shezad and Babak Ghazi speak of their pieces, of stereotypes and extremism as it was in 2004.In retrospect this show was well positioned on the arts calender and the media one, as before 9/11 these shows had a different tilt both to us as the public and us as Middle Easterners. The exhibition also featured a live piece by Reza Aramesh a previous guest of my show 'Six Pillars to Persia' on Resonancefm and whose work we enjoy following, however I'd not met him then.
Originally this quote referred to the human decimation of nature through war, on a pogo poster in 1971, however there are parallels to be drawn between our treatment of nature and our treatment of each other. The general disregard and flippant commercialisation of both lead to an estrangement from life altogether. Peter Lewis explains the show while Adam Curtis gives context at the start. "People have lost faith in ideologies...."
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