"Failed and Fell: Fell to Fail" : the narration of history in the works of Tacita Dean and Jeremy Deller

• Main Author: Mameni-Bushor, Sara
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2008
• Subjects: Tacita Dean; Jeremy Deller; British art; Contemporary art; Patoralism; Reenactment; Artangel; Maritime Museum London
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/2530

This Thesis is concerned with how history is narrated in two selected works by the British artists, Tacita Dean and Jeremy Deller. Chapter one considers Deller's The Battle of Orgreave (2001), a reenactment of a violent miners' strike against Margaret Thatcher's government in 1984-1985. The reenactment brought together reenactment hobbyist and ex-miners to perform the events at Orgreave and created a discourse around the imagined historical role of the working classes. Chapter two examines Dean's book Teignmouth Electron (1999), which recounts the failed voyage of Donald Crowhurst, one of the contestants of the 1967 Golden Globe Race who committed suicide after developing 'time-madness' at sea. She offers the history of this individual as a point of entry into middle-class aspirations in England in the 1960s. Produced at the turn of the 21st century when Britain's New Labour government was instigating an image of a New Britain to match its bygone glory, both works look back to moments in the past that epitomize the decline of the country's old order. Unearthing instances of failure and defeat, each artist offers an alternative glance at Britain's past and present condition than the one promoted by New Labour.