Karen Mirza and Dr Brad Butler (London, 1970)
Karen Mirza studied at the Royal College of Art and Camberwell College of Arts.
Brad Butler studied at the Royal College of Art, University College London and University of the Arts London.
Recent exhibitions include; Artes Mundi, Cardiff, UK (October 2014 – February 2015); MIRRORCITY, Hayward Gallery, London, UK (October 2014 – 4 January); Science Fiction: New Death, FACT, Liverpool, UK (March 2014 – June 2014); Gesture, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany (May 2014 – August 2014) and The New Deal, Walker Arts Centre, Minneapolis, USA (April 18–July 14, 2013). The artists have been nominated for Artes Mundi 6 (2014) for The Museum of non Participation and were shortlisted for the Jarman Award 2012 for the film Deep State and Hold Your Ground.
Both artists live and work in London.
The Unreliable Narrator (2014): The film tells the story of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India. The gripping footage is sourced from CCTV recordings of the siege and overlaid with telephone conversations between the attackers and their controllers, who orchestrate the violence from afar. The film suggests these scenes were performed for the news cameras and is part of Karen Mirza and Brad Butler’s project, The Museum of Non Participation, which was born out of a visit to the newly opened National Gallery of Art in Islamabad where the artists witnessed large scale protests in the city. The event led them to investigate what happens when artistic and political acts collide.
In the film, televised news footage and scenes taken from a recent Bollywood movie dramatizing the event are spliced together, emphasising the complex yet pivotal role technology and the media played in the attacks. A female voiceover narrates, piecing together the story for the viewer and suggesting the violent acts were performed for the benefit of the news cameras. Highlighting discrepancies in the media coverage of the event along the way, the narrator ultimately questions the role of the artwork itself and its portrayal of an act of terrorism to the public.