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Imran Perretta: A Riot in Three Acts

Combining sound, sculpture and performance to reflect on the narratives of our urban spaces and the social inequality and racial violence that shape them.
Sat 22 Feb - Sun 8 Jun
Sat 22 Feb
-
Sun 8 Jun

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.

Originally commissioned by and developed in residence at Somerset House Studios in London, the work evolves from Perretta’s experience as a young person during the UK riots in 2011. Initially a response to police violence in London, the riots became a national uprising brought on by an age of endless austerity, quickly spreading to Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham and beyond.

A Riot in Three Acts opens with Perretta’s old Blackberry handset on which he received broadcast messages during the early days of the 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 of a furniture shop at Reeves Corner in Croydon 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.

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 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 co-commissioned 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.

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.

Imran Perretta: A Riot in Three Acts runs from Sat 22 Feb until  Sun 8 Jun 2025 at HOME in our Main Gallery. 

Imran Perretta  Somerset House Studios  Somerset House

Manchester Camerata

      

Location: Main Gallery

Opening hours: Tue - Sat 12:00 - 20:00 and Sun 12:00 - 18:00

Admission: Free - please book a ticket

 

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HOME Gallery hosts a programme of new and commissioned work, featuring inter/nationally recognised and NW based artists. Including artist moving image, sculpture, painting, craft and performance-based…
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Imran Perretta

Artist