‘Hold Your Ground’ is a companion piece to a larger film work by Karen Mirza & Brad Butler, scripted in conjunction with renowned author China Miéville.  Inspired by the events of the Arab Spring, and triggered by the artists’ discovery in Cairo of a pamphlet of instructions for pro-democracy demonstrators called ‘How to protest intelligently’, the piece dissects the ‘semantics’ of the crowd, and the resulting performative Speech Act.  Conceived for the site at Canary Wharf this work calls forth the struggle to turn ‘fugitive sounds’ into speech addressing an audience predominantly in transit.

‘Hold Your Ground’ was presented at Canary Wharf Screen as part of ‘The City in the City’ programme between 1 March and 27 May 2012.

‘Hold Your Ground’ was commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella. Funded by Arts Council England and London Councils. Courtesy of Waterside Contemporary, London.