Left, Right and Centre

Cornelia Parker made her work Left, Right and Centre as a response to the British general election of 2017.

Parker is the fifth official election artist (and the first woman) to be commissioned by the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art since 2001. The commission invites artists to make work that is creative and without bias.

Left, Right and Centre shows the interior of the House of Commons during the 2017 election campaign. Newspapers are piled on the benches and blow around the chamber when they are caught in an unexpected breeze. Headlines charting polarised opinions across the political spectrum are seen clashing and scattering amid the general mess and chaos.

The work was filmed in darkness at night and in daylight the following day, using two cameras, a drone and a wind machine. One camera acts as passive observer and the other (on the drone) acts as an agitator that disrupts the familiar space.

Parker trained as an artist at Wolverhampton Polytechnic and Reading University. She is well known for her installations, including Cold Dark Matter (1991), a reconstruction of an exploded shed.

Parker made three works for the general election commission, including this film (in an edition of three) and two others. These are now in the Parliamentary Art Collection. This second edition of Left, Right and Centre now enters the collection of the Ulster Museum in Belfast.