In Culture
In January 2007, former Turner Prize nominee Mark Wallinger recreated Brian Haw’s Parliament Square protest in its entirety as an exhibition at Tate Britain, titled State Britain. Running the length of the Duveen Gallery, State Britain was a painstaking reconstruction of the display confiscated by the Metropolitan Police in 2006. It included 500 weather-worn banners, photos, peace flags, and messages from well-wishers collected by Haw over the duration of the Peace Protest, as well as his self-constructed shelter. In December 2007 Wallinger's work won the Turner Prize.
The London-based band XX Teens recorded a song "For Brian Haw", which was included on their 2008 album Welcome To Goon Island. The track incorporated a statement by Haw himself about his motivations for the protest.
Free music pioneer Sean Terrington Wright dedicated his 12th CD album "War No More", released in 2008, to Haw. In September 2011 Wright wrote "Ballad Of Brian Haw" for his "Vox Pop" album.
Haw was featured in the short length documentary Maria: 24hr Peace Picket by Iranian film director Parviz Jahed, about fellow peace campaigner Maria Gallastegui.
In 2009 Youth Music Theatre: UK developed the music theatre production According to Brian Haw... based on reactions by young people to Haw's life, 9/11 and the Iraq war. This was performed at the Barbican Theatre, Plymouth. This production was again performed in 2012 at Square Chapel Centre for the Arts in Halifax with a new cast of young people.
Zia Trench's debut play, The State We're In, based on Haw's life, was performed for the first time at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe, featuring Michael Byrne in the lead role and directed by Justin Butcher. Trench said: "There is a messianic illusion around him, something so Jesus-like about him. "He has taken on our fight but what has this cost him? The play looks at the man behind the protest and how battles fought for liberty can cost a man his wife, home and sanity."
Read more about this topic: Brian Haw
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