The Jungle
2017 mixed media
When he came home that night he was in a very somber mood,
having begun to see at last how those might be right who had
laughed at him for his faith in America.
– Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, 1906
The Jungle is a theatrical adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s classic ‘muckraking’ exposé on the dehumanising labour practices of the Chicago meat-packing industry at the turn of the last century. Sinclair’s novel is re-staged as a collection of performative objects which echo the artistic and political energies of the early 1900’s –a period of intense agitation, of extreme ideologies, of totalitarianism, but also of progressive legislation, of political pluralism and of grass-root actions. In short, a period eerily like our own.
The collection of costumes, masks, props and historical materials are intended to be used, activated and imaginatively appropriated by the visiting public. The work is made in collaboration with designers Alexa Pollmann and Nick Williamson, and choreographer Julie Cunningham.
The Jungle is the first of a series of immersive works which draw from the traditions of political theatre and performing arts from the first half of the 20th century. From the Soviet Proletkult, to the agitprops of pre-war Europe, through to the socialist, anarchist, and union-run troupes in the Americas and European colonies, the works reveal how cultural production, through the coalescing of fictional and factual material, has served to inform and infect working-class political consciousness.
Originally exhibited at The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, and through the grateful support of Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, Siobhan Davies Dance in London and the Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco.