Moral Wreckage
Margot Henderson
My project was about the idea of moral wreckage throughout society, and how power hierarchies and class structures allow for exploitation.
I’d been focusing a lot on the history of the country’s mills, looking at their colonial links (with many owners profiting from the trade of goods like cotton, grown by enslaved people) and, most prominently, the treatment of workers, with poor pay, long hours and working conditions that were often insanitary and unsafe. This is a history I wasn’t aware of before doing this research; the museums I visited when exploring the topic generally didn’t mention the exploitation that made up such a big part of the mills’ pasts.
This meant I was interested in looking at how we can shine a light on such issues to give some sense of historical justice, and come together to re- write their history and inform others, and I organised a workshop to gain insight into how different people connected with this problem, questioning art’s role in re-education. This was expressed through writing tasks, as well as clay manipulation, to see how feelings could be impressed into a medium.
I’d been focusing a lot on the history of the country’s mills, looking at their colonial links (with many owners profiting from the trade of goods like cotton, grown by enslaved people) and, most prominently, the treatment of workers, with poor pay, long hours and working conditions that were often insanitary and unsafe. This is a history I wasn’t aware of before doing this research; the museums I visited when exploring the topic generally didn’t mention the exploitation that made up such a big part of the mills’ pasts.
This meant I was interested in looking at how we can shine a light on such issues to give some sense of historical justice, and come together to re- write their history and inform others, and I organised a workshop to gain insight into how different people connected with this problem, questioning art’s role in re-education. This was expressed through writing tasks, as well as clay manipulation, to see how feelings could be impressed into a medium.
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Running this workshop drastically altered my perspective on this subject. By allowing me access to the immediate responses of my participants, after sharing what I’d learnt about the mills’ histories, it provided a really insightful ‘in’ to our cultural treatment of such topics. While many discussed the clear notions of injustice, I was surprised at how many people spoke about their personal feelings of neutrality on the topic, the fact they hadn’t been personally affected resulting in a numbness to the subject. This fascinated me because it highlighted the economic influence of moral socialisation, the way we’re taught to psychologically distance ourselves from problem’s that don’t directly impact us, leaving established power structures unquestioned. This completely changed the way I viewed my theme, seeing the influence of modern cultural education on these histories of injustice and exploitation, and so my workshop became incredibly significant to the development of my project along this line.
