Jeremy Deller

This is Jeremy Deller’s room. He’s been shortlisted for the Turner Prize for his mixed-media installation work, Memory Bucket, which documents his recent travels through the state of Texas. Here he is, talking about one of his earlier works – the large wall drawing here called The History of the World – and first, about how he’s designed this room:

“Hello, I’m Jeremy and welcome to my room. Before I talk about the featured work I’d like to draw attention to a few things in the room. Firstly there’s a free newspaper you can take which is by the Texas film and that really tells you about my research I did for that. Also in the middle of the room there’s a table with books on and you’re very welcome to go and sit down and go through the books – they’re all related to subjects in the room.

If you’re in the room at a weekend there’s a very good chance there’ll be someone in the room who’s an expert on some topic that relates to the room. And they’ll probably have a badge on to identify them. Amongst them there’ll be someone coming in talking about bats, a former miner I worked with on the battle of Orgreave is going to come in and be talking and just chatting to people, an expert on American politics will be coming in, someone who knows a lot about Brian Epstein is coming in. Some Quakers are coming in to discuss their faith and some cycle activists are coming in to tell people about cycling in London. They’re not talks strictly they’re just opportunities to have a conversation. So don’t be shy to go up and have a chat with them.

So I’ve been asked to talk about The History of the World which is the big wall drawing in front of you. There’s a quote by Lenin which is “everything is connected to everything else” and that could almost be the title of this work cos it’s how my brain works in a lot of ways how I try to connect things up, and it’s how I work as an artist in that respect.

I did a work called Acid Brass which was when I got a brass band to play Acid House music. And this diagram explains it in the way that I thought that brass bands and Acid House music actually have a lot in common even though on the face of it they have nothing in common whatsoever. They’re both these forms of folk and popular music, they’re both very strong, had a very strong following in the north of England, or still do. And also they have a connection in the middle with trade unions, with the media hysteria that surrounded Acid House music and drug culture, and also with the miners’ strike. So they meet in the middle really with civil unrest as you can see.

I have to say that it was one of the most pleasant experiences as an artist to work with a brass band, to hang out with those guys and to go to the concerts with them which were just great social occasions. And that’s something that I try to bring out in my work: a sense of enjoyment of what I do.”