The exhibition documents the ongoing competition for public space in urban areas. What was once conceived as a democratic space now more closely resembles a battlefield, with constant negotiations between citizens who want to leave their mark and authorities who seek to regulate and clean it up. At the heart of Burke’s exploration is the growing obsession of state institutions with security and control (a concept Michel Foucault famously termed the „disciplinary society“). A pervasive testament to this is the rise of so-called defensive architecture, which is primarily aimed at restricting the free movement of a city’s inhabitants.
Burke often reclaims materials directly from the street—such as fences, walls, and tiles—whose absence creates a strong sense of tactility, opening up new pathways in the city. He later reconfigures these materials into new objects that reference, subvert, and question the values by which we design our society. His work reflects on how public space is shaped by competing interests, while subtly evoking ideas of freedom.
Tictac consists of anti-slip tiles that have been sprayed with color in a way that is both abstract and playful—a nod to street art as an aesthetic reclaiming of public space. The large-scale work Palisade is made from parts of a security fence commonly found in the UK. Here, the desire for security is taken to such an extreme that the so-called „safe space“ becomes a prison without an entrance. Empeche-pipi references a real-world device designed to prevent urination; in Burke’s work, it takes the form of an evil grin with broken teeth. Finally, Chirpie is the smallest and the only piece in the exhibition not made from found objects. In it, the artistic expression is not constrained by the brutality of the material, as if the bird is singing of a utopia called freedom.
text: Clemens Espenlaub
photos: Nils Bornemann, Stephen Burke
