Brexitland
‘Brexitland’ (2019) is a large wall map of a Brexit-obsessed, tragically divided United Kingdom, as created by artist Stephen Walter.
Every inch of the map has come under its influence, as he explains: “The areas that voted Remain in the 2016 EU Referendum have been flooded by the sea. Almost all that remains are the districts that voted for Leave (above 50%). Having commissioned the printing of a bespoke map showing the district boundaries used for the 2016 EU Referendum – for the next four months, I laboriously hand-painted over it with watercolors.”
‘Many of the place names of Brexitland have been altered with letters painted-out to reveal new words that directly reference Brexit itself, and others that evoke negative connotations brought on by it. Many of the ‘South’ names have had the ‘S’ and the ‘H’ removed to reveal ‘out’.’
‘Deal in Kent is now of course ‘No Deal’.’
‘The flooding of the Remain areas has caused among others, the District of Chichester to become a cape jutting out into water, and a bluff in North Somerset.’
‘The great capital of old England is now just simply the “London Basin”.’
‘Brexit puts the continuation of the UK as we know it into question, Scotland being a case in point. All its districts voted for Remain, and so most of Scotland has been obliterated from the map, except for Moray in the north, where the vote for Remain was only 50.1%. It is now an archipelago.’
Author account for the Good Trouble hive-mind.
