Artist Grayson Perry’s latest stab at attempting to reflect the true concerns of the populace sees him wondering how to pick up the pieces in a post-Brexit UK. His documentary Divided Britain (Tuesday, Channel 4, 9pm) takes the same tone as his previous work for Channel 4, where Perry’s art is created as the end result based on a type of crowd- sourcing.
In the past this touched on topics such as masculinity, class and self image, this documentary focuses on the populist identity politics that the idea of Brexit forced its voters to examine.
Perry put his Remain views to the side as he interviews passionate Brexit supporters who feel cheated by an EU they never seemed to prosper from. He chats to an immigrant worker on a farm in Boston, Lancashire who is frightened of what he sees as a return to blind ignorance and a mother and son who opine that Britons will not do the thankless, menial jobs that countless immigrants must do. In a leafy London suburb, he visits progressive schools and morning raves listening to the privileged express their discomfort at being on the outside of the EU and worrying about their fractious future.
Perry asks these people to send him their idea of what Brexit or Remain means to them, what public figures they think represent their views, the images that they think best make up the concept of Britain.
The final two vases, one for Remain and one for Brexit, are reminiscent of Danny Boyle’s Olympics opening ceremony bricolage effect. They are Britain’s Big Brother style “best bits” and what transpires is that both sides have matching philosophies, a shared vision of what they think their country should be. To both, the UK is a place of the Queen and Marmite, of country gardens, teas and fry-ups. Perry takes this as a general feeling of optimism and unification, that the Yoga Mummies of Hackney want and enjoy the same things as the cabbies from Lincolnshire, but in actuality they both share an idea of a country that is as mythical as Orwell’s pre-war Britain in Coming Up For Air or The Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society, bound up in a nostalgia for something that never was.
Their UK is a country that is as constructed as Perry’s twin vases and contain a national psyche that is just as fragile.
