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No Longer A Bystander: ‘A Riot In Three Acts’ by Imran Perretta

Artist, composer and filmmaker Imran Perretta returns to Somerset House with his first major work since 2019: A Riot in Three Acts. The piece confronts our collective experience with civil unrest by reflecting on the turbulence of the London riots in 2011. Through a string of artistic displays and community-led events, it invites audiences to an incremental exploration of its themes. The main installation held in the Lancaster Rooms provides physical materials that portray the immediate consequences of the riots. Following this, the additional programme implores you to engage further in the ongoing dialogues of race, equality and justice.

What sparked the piece was an unassuming, out-of-use Blackberry Messenger found among Perretta’s old belongings. On it exists the immortal footage of Reeves Corner, a symbolic site of the riots in Croydon, engulfed in flames. As with Croydon, protests, looting and arson erupted across the country following the killing of Mark Duggan, an unarmed Black man shot by police in Tottenham on the 4th of August 2011. Tensions of class and race surged as marginalised communities clashed with institutions; including police, businesses and public transport. Framing the looped video on the Blackberry shows the helplessness of a young onlooker to the destruction caused by righteous anger.

Cinema and sound are used in this piece to explore the memory of a bystander. At the centre of the installation is a film set constructed after Reeves Corner, with the backdrop of the House of Reeves, a more than 150-year-old family-run furniture business. The shop’s adjacent building perished after a mattress was set on fire during the riots. Walking through the reconstructed site, visitors explore its remains of bare trees, litter and gravel accompanied by Peretta’s emotional self-composed score. It transports visitors to a neglected area of Croydon, confronted with their overlooked histories and unexplored grief - left in a sombre space between violence and peace. This purgatorial uncertainty could very well persist without much attention, therefore, the cinematic portrait sheds light on a dark history few wish to capture.

The full musical score used in the exhibition, A Requiem for the Dispossessed, composed by Perretta and arranged by William Newell, will be performed live by the Manchester Camerata on the 25th and 26th of October at Somerset House. Expanding beyond a personal account, an extensive live programme supplements the themes through social discourse. Included are workshops for aspiring young creatives and activist-led events. These themes are divided into three acts, independent of the installation. Act One: Retrieving Croydonia, Act Two: Spatialities of Violence, and Act Three: Liberated Zones for Palestine. These “pay what you can” discussions will be held throughout October.

The first act explores urban planning and community agency in Croydon. Despite attempts at private and luxury (re)developments, Reeves Corner has remained unused and blocked off by a white picket fence for more than a decade since the fire. It lends itself to Croydon’s continued legacy of austerity and urban disinvestment. The second act then brings academic views on hostile architecture in the UK’s public infrastructure. The lack of ownership as it stays neither public nor private, demonstrates a larger narrative of contested land. Finally, the third act highlights the solidarity between marginalised communities in the UK and Palestinians under occupation.

Thirteen years on, we are no strangers to seeing riots through our phone screens. Looking back on an era where this documentation was unprecedented, we can examine how much, or how little, we have progressed. From the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 to the polar opposite far-right riots in August, we are often afforded little contemplation or progression. When given a dedicated space to explore these themes, Imran Perretta displays complexity through a talent of art forms. The programme further provides vital dialogues and resources to address social inequality, urban spaces and racial violence. As we continue to witness the legacy of racism, the increased accessibility to progressive projects can create empowered and informed communities.

A Riot in Three Acts is showing until 10th November. For more info, go to the exhibition page.