Controversial artist Brett Bailey's company Third World Bunfight has hit back at critics of his latest work, Exhibit B, due to open at London's Barbican complex on 23 September.
Controversial artist Brett Bailey's company Third World Bunfight has hit back at critics of his latest work, Exhibit B, due to open at London's Barbican complex on 23 September.
They say they are deeply disturbed by the vitriol with which some have attacked the work. Campaigners have branded the work as racist, with thousands signing a petition calling for the show to be axed.
Exhibit B looks at the atrocities committed by colonial forces in German South West Africa and in the Belgian and French Congos as well as the more recent plight of African immigrants living in and deported from Europe – "the cold horror of apartheid", a media release from the company's board explains.
Expressing their unqualified support for Bailey's work, the board describes the theatre company's mission as producing diverse works that are thought-provoking and challenging.
"In particular, opening the eyes of the world to post-colonial Africa and this continent’s relationship with the West, both present and past."
Third World Bunfight describes Exhibit B as "brave, deeply layered and well considered" both in presentation and choice of subject matter.
"Bailey took many years to formulate it. He did years of detailed and thorough research.
"Together with the performers of the work, he has carefully worked through and addressed the many controversial, painful and difficult issues the performance of such a work raises," a statement from the company says.
"We are deeply disturbed by the invective and vitriol levelled on social media at the performers and Brett.
"We find it painful and staggeringly ironical that a work that shattered many European patrons by holding up a mirror to their colonial past and its continuing legacy, finds itself under attack by critics who ostensibly share the same goals as Brett Bailey and this company."
National Arts Festival Artistic Director Ismail Mohamed, commenting on the controversy in the 5 August edition of Grocott's Mail, said Bailey's work had been one of the highlights of the National Arts Festival in 2012.
He described it as emotionally moving, intellectually engaging and socially provocative.
"It is rooted in the political idiom. It is intended to unravel the kind of conversations that are necessary to remind us about the brutalities that existed.
"But it also challenges us to reflect on how similar kinds of brutalities continue to be perpetuated in societies under occupation," Mohamed said.
