Anger, art and the environment

Review:  Chris Packham's Natural Selection

Jeremy Deller: English Magic (part)

Chris Packham's Natural Selection, an occasional series hidden away on BBC4 TV brought together three of our most treasured controversialists in conversation.  The programme was aired last week and is available to view for another three weeks - click the button below.  

Watch  here

The three participants were united by their anger.  Jeremy Deller is the artist whose six-room exhibition English Magic at the 2013 Venice Biennale included a painting of a giant hen harrier clutching a Range Rover.  As symbols of the unequal struggle between oppressor and oppressed, they were well chosen, not least because the painting was a direct response to Deller's anger at the news of the shooting of two hen harriers at the royal estate in Sandringham.

Presenter Chris Packham is well known for stepping into the firing line over illegal bird killing, on behalf of both hen harriers and migrant birds in Malta.  George Monbiot's assessment chimed with Deller's skillfully-wrought artistic response:  the only people who want hen harriers to go extinct are the landowners who have the means to make it happen, but no popular support.  The ones with all the popular support have no power to stop them.

The trio went on to critique Packham's own artistic efforts - good third year stuff according to Deller - and the role of the BBC and Sir David Attenborough in projecting the reality - or otherwise - of the threats facing the planet.  The programme is available on the BBC iPlayer, and well worth an hour of anyone's time.

Bird Bothering MP Richard Benyon gets a surprise on his grouse moor pic.twitter.com/YEL8JcUkzY

— jeremy deller (@jeremydeller) June 6, 2015