The Empire’s Old Clothes by whatsthebigmistry
From: 24th April 2025 12:00 pm
To: 29th June 2025 5:00 pm
Attenborough Arts Centre
Hashtag
About
The Empire’s Old Clothes challenges the insidious myths and propaganda around the ‘British Empire’ and draws on influences, aesthetics and politics from Indian and Afro-Futurism, queer culture and experiences of ableism and racism in post-Empire Brexit-Britain. This short non-linear film borrows from the symbolic style of ‘tableaux vivant’, science education films and Empire propaganda.
This piece is inspired by the folktale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, which speaks about the ways in which deceitful narratives support out-dated and malevolent power structures which continue to work even once ‘outed’. The story utilises and subverts the language/s of Empire and the embedded belief systems that live within it.
This work is commissioned by Unlimited, and Disability Arts Online (DAO), with support from ONYX and is in response to the Queen’s Honours List. It was brought about specifically because Unlimited’s senior producer was awarded and accepted an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), which was viewed by many as an awkward or controversial decision. This work is at once a provocation and an invitation to rethink and rewrite ‘histories’, to demand change and define what it really means to take action against racism.
The Empire’s Old Clothes is not only for those who identify as British, those of dual Heritage or those who have a ‘British Experience’, the awkward, queer, Dis/abled and those who experience exclusion. It also seeks to connect to those who don’t experience racism, think Empire has already ended and consider colonialism obsolete.
The Commission was made by an intersectional BIPOC / Global Majority Identifying team of artists and professionals. This work was set to give a challenging stark contrast to the national celebrations planned for events including the Jubilee and Commonwealth Games. The Empire’s Old Clothes became public in 2022, a year when the Queen’s death saw this work removed from viewing at The Southbank Centre following the Queen’s death.
