Somerset House Studios to present a new commission, A Riot in Three Acts, by artist, filmmaker and composer Imran Perretta using sound, sculpture and performance to reflect on the narratives of our urban spaces and the social inequality and racial violence that shape them.
This is the Somerset House Studios’ long-standing resident’s first major new work since 2019.
A Riot In Three Acts is a large-scale installation using the tropes and techniques of cinema, in the form of an expansive film set and cinematic score, to consider riots and civil uprisings that have occurred in response to systemic injustice experienced by marginalised communities. The exhibition provides a stage for the complex narratives that accompany such collective actions directed against the state, often spurred by racist policing, social deprivation, youth disenfranchisement and anti-war sentiment.
Researched and developed at Somerset House Studios over the course of two years, the work evolves from Perretta’s experience as a young person during the London Riots in 2011, initially, a response to police violence, which became a national uprising brought on by an age of endless austerity.
A Riot in Three Acts opens with Perretta’s old Blackberry handset on which he received broadcast messages during the days of the London Riots; the now-defunct Blackberry Messenger (BBM) platform was a key communication tool as one of the first end-to-end encrypted messaging services. The burning imagery presented on the handset is emblematic of the five days of civil uprising in cities across the country, following the shooting of Mark Duggan, an unarmed Black man, by police in Tottenham on 4 August 2011.
In the main space of the Lancaster Rooms, the film set consisting of a painted scenic backdrop and props replicates Reeves Corner as it exists today — a fenced-off area of disused scrubland. The site remains as a piece of highly contested land, representing at once a memorial ground to a historic family business, a haunting reminder of a community’s righteous anger, and the death of a dream for change and the end of austerity. After a decade of socioeconomic turmoil and the systematic erosion of public space and resources, it sits as one of many examples of a privately owned, suburban wasteland, forever awaiting (re)development, itself now an unofficial point of congregation for local people, a neglected location that could be in any UK city.
Central to A Riot in Three Acts is a newly commissioned score, A Requiem for the Dispossessed, composed by Perretta, arranged by William Newell and performed by Manchester Camerata. Drawing on the classical tradition of the requiem, a musical composition honouring the dead, the score serves as a sonic representation of a civil uprising and its aftermath, questioning who controls the narrative around how these actions are interpreted. Presented in spatialised surround sound by producers and fellow Somerset House Studios residents Call and Response, the installation mirrors the experience of cinema sound, with the audience physically located at the centre of the action. The full score will be performed live inside the installation by members of Manchester Camerata over two weekends during the exhibition run.
Coinciding with the exhibition, Perretta hosts an episode of the Somerset House podcast series ‘The Process’, sitting down with artists and historians to find out what one patch of scrubland in Croydon can tell us about the legacy of social unrest in Britain, and how we memorialise dissent. Available via Channel – channel.somersethouse.org.uk/podcasts/process.
Subscribe to the Somerset House podcast via Apple Podcasts and Spotify Podcasts. The exhibition also includes a programme of live performances and events and a 5-day workshop for aspiring creatives aged 16-19.
Perretta’s recent accolades include a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Artist Award and a Turner Prize bursary. His work has been exhibited globally from Vienna to LA and this winter will see the release of a feature-length film commissioned by the BBC titled, ISH.
A Riot In Three Acts (2024) is commissioned and developed in residence by Somerset House Studios. Requiem for the Dispossessed (2024) is co-commissioned by Somerset House Studios and the Manchester Camerata, by arrangement with NEWFORM MUSIC. Supported by d&b audiotechnik’s Soundscape.
Book your Free/ Pay What You Can ticket HERE
A Riot in Three Acts: Performance and Live Events Programme
The exhibition is accompanied by a series of live events, including eight intimate live performances of Imran Perretta’s original score for a string quartet, Requiem For The Dispossessed, performed by the Manchester Camerata orchestra, within the installation.
A programme of discursive events curated by Rahila Haque will also invite artists, designers, architects, activists and academics to gather on the gravel of the replica of Reeves Corner to consider the symbolism, historical narratives and contemporary issues that permeate the installation. Corresponding to the exhibition’s reference to the model of the three-act structure, the programme builds a narrative of interconnectedness from a discrete site in Croydon to a global civil uprising.
Act One focuses on the local, concrete realities and experiences in Croydon that are embedded in the site; Act Two explores how spatial violence in the UK instigates and punishes civil uprisings as part of the broader context of racial capitalism; and Act Three culminates with the student Palestine solidarity movement, with its internationalist approach and challenge to the politics of space and university structures.
Full programme and tickets HERE
About the artist
Questions around power and identity formation underpin Perretta’s work in a post-9/11 world marked by austerity, state-sponsored Islamophobia, and the War on Terror. Recent exhibitions, screenings and performances include tears of the fatherland, Secession, Vienna (2024), The Condition of Being Addressable, ICA LA (2022), SUROOR for CTM Festival, Berlin and Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022), the destructors, Spike Island, Bristol, Chisenhale Gallery, London, the Whitworth, Manchester and BALTIC, Gateshead (2020-21) and Rotterdam International Film Festival; AMRA (in collaboration with Paul Purgas) for Art Night London, (2020-21). Imran was a recipient of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Artist Award in 2023 and was named a Turner Prize Bursary recipient in 2020. imranperretta.com
