WILLIAM LAKIN

A Glimmer of Accountability spans the course of two years and two major political events. Beginning in 2015 the project is a response to life under the influence of a confusing and surprising political period. In the so called post-truth era of populist politics and hyper-consumerism this work seeks to create a feeling of unease and tension by framing the landscape, everyday objects and young adults in a way that obscures details and implies artificiality. Both the presidential campaign and Brexit were won on appealing narratives, lies and the convenient stretching of truth. Whilst a lot of the trickery involved in these campaigns were not necessarily new phenomena’s, it does appear that what was unique was an almost complete disregard of facts, figures and expert knowledge in favour of a narrative which people could connect with. The project aims to communicate in the fashion of the campaigns that won in 2016; by using repetition, recognition and clearly manipulated aesthetics to appeal to an audience and to project a message.