Hannah Blacklock is drawn to the dirty words on the walls of a Shoreditch gallery.
‘I can’t come in today so fuck off’.
Haven’t we all woken up on a Monday morning and wanted to make this call? Well now you kindof can (without losing your job).
In a pop-up gallery beneath Forge & Co at 154-158 Shoreditch High Street, a seven foot square backdrop is positioned in the middle of the room, with the word ‘work’ projected in a huge font across it. A speech bubble declaring ‘I can’t come in today so fuck off’ allows you to stand in the scene with a phone to your ear, and have your picture taken with the words we’d all like to say but don’t dare to.
Welcome to ‘A Decade in the Shithouse’ by Modern Toss – a tongue in cheek world of cartoons, illustrations and expletives.
Shed loads of expletives.
The show is the work of Jon Link and Mick Bunnage, creators and chief contributors to Modern Toss. It is a pop-up projection of their crowd-funded comic, which exceeded its initial funding target within 48 hours of going live.
Link and Bunnage’s work has appeared in Private Eye, the Sunday Times Style magazine and the Guardian. Besides appearing in mainstream publications, they have built up a loyal fan base for their writing, illustration and animation.
Their current show is not one for all the family. The friend you go with will need to be open minded, to get over seeing the C word plastered across a wall, and hearing insults such as ‘whore’ and ‘arse’ coming at you from an interactive display in the corner.
But after the initial shock, somehow the obscenities do not make you feel uncomfortable. The show succeeds in putting a satirical and light-hearted spin on otherwise offensive subjects. It sets out to say the un-sayable, without being hurtful – and that in itself is remarkable.
‘A Decade….’ pushes social boundaries with scurrilous humour and overt vulgarity. It’s worth running the risk of being offended; you have until Sunday 19 October to pay a visit to the Shithouse.