Lifted (2017) by Melanie Manchot is a still from a collaborative project Dance (All Night, London). Five youthful figures are pictured jumping, apparently suspended in mid-air: an expression of collective joy and a challenge to often authoritative codes of behaviour in public space. Situated on the threshold between documentary and staged events, Manchot’s work frequently involves an engagement with strangers. “In Lifted,“ she says, “bodies are acting together as an assemblage of dancers forming multiple relations to the specifics of this urban space: its signs, architectures, graffiti, objects. As a photographic images it speaks to the stillness of a brief moment, stilled by the camera, while pointing to the flow that precedes and follows.”

Fiona Crisp’s Belvedere 2020 wittily frames J.M.W. Turner’s favoured Lake District scene with a window of card painted to resemble brickwork, raising issues of land ownership and the construction of ‘views’ both visual and ideological. “Division/Revision creates an incredible opportunity for an artwork to have a fleeting exchange with an unexpecting and unexpected audience […] Temporarily inserted within the fabric of the city it plays with dualities of inside and outside, public and private, confinement and freedom, rural and urban.”

Alberta Whittle’s practice is concerned with self-care and compassion as key tactics in confronting anti-blackness in a society where xenophobia is entrenched. Beyond an initial impression of sunny, paradisiacal watercolours Whittle’s Lessons in Belonging (2021) present contradictory remarks that reveal the duplicity and insincerity that can lie behind apparent ‘beauty’. “The billboard becomes a place to ask questions of public space, to think about who is welcome and who is being spoken to,” the artist explained.

John Kippin’s contribution to Division/Revision reproduces an old postcard picture of Balmoral Castle, the Queen’s favourite residence. The words ‘BRITAIN’S No1 BESTSELLER’ and ‘YOUR PLACE’ overprint the image, drawing attention to the wealth, extensive ownership and privilege associated with the monarchy and the public’s changing attitudes towards them. Kippin suggested, “Billboards create a particular kind of dialogue between the artist and the public. One that is about the presented image but it is also about all billboard images, past and present. It’s a context that is rich in possibilities and open to endless interpretations at all levels of engagement.”

The New Meridians (2021) photographic triptych by Eva Stenram combines disparate, physically distant European landscapes to question histories, conflicts, power and shifting alignments across the continent, bringing to mind the uncertainty of connections between people and nations. The artist said, “In pandemic and post-Brexit 2021 many connections are once again uncertain. Grids and demarcations are being redrawn, new meridians are being created.”