is a collaborative protest artwork, by the FORETASTE Collective, to highlight how our freedom to protest is being suppressed by an increasingly authoritarian government. This site-specific work centred on a silent ‘demonstration’ outside the Houses of Parliament – in Parliament Square and by the National Covid Memorial Wall, where three protesters stood for over an hour in each location, dressed in identical white, featureless clothes, wearing masks, holding blank placards and handing out blank leaflets to passers-by. The work is documented by a photographer and filmmaker and the images uploaded to social media to continue the engagement. 

At a time when the UK government is suppressing our right to protest and using mainstream media as a right wing propaganda machine to prop up neo-liberal democracy to protect capitalist interests, the aims of this artwork – as a starting point for change – have never been more critical.

No Message Protest was initially set up to generate dialogue about how our freedom to protest was being threatened by the government’s Public Order Bill. Although the Public Order Act was passed on 2 May 2023, I feel this work will evolve to become a useful vehicle for demonstrating how art can create political discourse. The foundations have been laid on which to grow the artwork into a protest movement against the injustices we face around the world.