_The Last Supper
_The Last Supper
A KINETIC INSTALLATION first exhibited at THE BLACK RAT GALLERY, London. 2012.
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I wanted to consider the role religion plays in our society and focus especially on the way it treats children. There was a lot of media coverage on the physical abuse within the Church but I wanted to focus on the mental abuse. The mental abuse comes chiefly from the teachings of an unsubstantiated threat of violence and pain.
The extreme threat of violence and pain is precisely what the doctrine of hell is and kids believe it because they are taught it by people they trust.
- GILES WALKER 2012
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The work presents a powerful conflation of the sacred and the macabre in its drawing together of the imagery of the biblical last supper with that of condemned inmates on death row (a strange disembodied voice reads out the names of executed prisoners and the contents of their final meals at intervals). Despite the initial awe one feels when faced with the dazzling and quite beautiful robotics on display, in lesser hands its subject could very easily appear crude or mere polemic. Not so with Walker. The work continually creates different moods and effects before dismantling them and examining new ones in a manner which feels wonderfully orchestrated. This sense of orchestration, reflected in the physical sense by the appearance of the marionettes and their exposed strings, gives the whole installation a cohesion that is startlingly affecting and after leaving the room a residue of its presence, like the feeling one often feels after an immersive theatre performance, remains for some time.