Sometimes we are outside, very rarely are we in. Hitting the highway and running for the hills may seem the most Butch Cassidy of remedies, in true renegade form. But these days, can we ever get outside law? Scroll on our screens and we find T’s&C’s, we wrench at those who are encamped and detained – maybe we are those encamped and detained – walk down the street and find those who are definitely not included in the law: it can be hard to imagine the anti-hero, the one who gallops off into the dusty vista with their loot in their leathers, state patrols on their heels, a caricature of the criminal underworld and otherly nether spaces. Maybe back then law wasn’t everywhere, or maybe more like back then the law as the frontier itself.
Etymologically ‘outlaw’ means ‘fugitive from the law’, following old English ‘utlaga’ ‘one put outside the law’ or from Old Norse ‘utlagi’, to be outlawed or to be banished. Being banished means no longer having legal protection, being exempt, and not in a playful Jess James kinda way, but in a way those crossing seas to seek refuge only to either die on the way or find no legal recourse once at their promissory destination.
What does outlaw mean to us today? What does it mean to be banished and excluded from the law? Can we even be outside the law – and maybe we want to be.
This exhibition explores what being outside the law may mean, from refugee status as excluded bare life, to animals whose agential rights are still outside of our legal frameworks, those living outside with no shelter, the impact of outsiderness on the everyday.
Come join us at SEAS (Socially Engaged Art Salon) based at Brighton’s BMECP Centre not too far from the station, for a month long residency of the Art/Law Network and its members enact, manifest, represent and bring to life in one form or another, what it means to be, know, see and feel, as one, or many, out(law)(s).
We have an array of events, come along for these or just to see our installations and works in place.
out(Law)
Opening Times:
September 2019
Saturdays and Sundays 12-6pm
Events:
6 September 7.30-10pm – Private View (Tickets)
7 September – SLEEP with Distant Animals and Cyren Aur
8 September – Corners with Cyren Aur and Charlie Blake
14 September – Live Art Intervention/s (Margarita X: A case study) / Roundtable on Law, Art and Resistance with Jack Tan and Janina Moninska
16 September 2-6pm – Art/Law Journal Launch Symposium
21-22 September – Wasted Treasure / Identity Significant with Darren Calder and Natalia Jaffe
28 September 8pm – 1/4 million accord: Reset Treatie Performance by Layla Mi
28-29 September – COMMIT with Mocksim and Distant Animals
Check the out(Law) Facebook Site.
