Savage Messiah

Description

Savage Messiah collects the entire set of Laura Oldfield Ford's fanzine to date. Part graphic novel, part artwork, the book is both an angry polemic against the marginalization of the city's working class and an exploration of the cracks that open up in urban space.

Laura Oldfield Ford, originally from Halifax, West Yorkshire, studied at the Royal College of Art and has become well known for her politically active and poetic engagement with London as a site of social antagonism. She exhibits and teaches across Europe and America.

The consumer-friendly face of neoliberal Britain gets an anarchic makeover in Laura Oldfield Ford's politically biting work. ... No false promises of a brighter, better, more sanitised tomorrow here. Instead, she focuses on areas haunted by an urban dispossessed, which regeneration seeks to concrete over: city wastelands where fortress-like old tower-blocks rise, with their Escher-like walkways and bleak "recreational" open spaces. -- Skye Sherwin * Guardian * Oldfield Ford displays authentic gifts as a recorder and mapper of terrain. She is a necessary kind of writer, smart enough to bring document and poetry together in a scissors-and-paste, post-authorial form. -- Iain Sinclair * Guardian * This black-and-white, cut 'n' paste-style zine by the artist Laura Oldfield Ford, in which she traces her psychogeographical drifts around London's grimey underbelly, has achieved cult status in art circles since its first issue in 2005. Be warned: this is a city you won't find in any guidebook. * Independent * No exercise in style nostalgia, this is her recovery of punk's provocation and politicization. * Art Review *