Rebekkah (2012)

Rebekkah is 16 year old girl from Hackney who was one of the protagonists of the London riots in 2011. She narrowly escaped prosecution for her role in the destruction of public property and looting that took place across London. Instead of facing prosecution Rebekkah was asked by Simon Fujiwara to undertake a unique experiment of social intervention. She was given a two-week journey to China where she experienced first a different culture and visited some of China's most important cultural landmarks. During this time she was given no access to social media sites and was unable to communicate with her peers, giving her time to reflect on her experiences. While in China Rebekkah visited factories where many of the objects she owns or aspires to own (fashion clothing, mobile phones, flat-screen TVs) are produced and witnessed what can be achieved when a massive-scale, national population pulls together towards one common goal: individual improvement through mass production, organisation and hard work.

The trip culminated with a viewing of the Terracotta Warriors, after which Rebekkah was taken to a factory where casts were made of her body to be assembled into modern day versions of the warriors. Rebekkah feeds into existing narratives within the collection at Leeds Art Gallery and helps to chart the development of life-size figure sculpture and portrait sculpture from the 19th century.

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