Members of Team We Heart are often to be found cowering under their desks, but there was a time during the height of the Cold War when this was positively encouraged by governments. As the fingers of power edged ever closer to the big red button, public service films were released instructing the masses what to do in the event of a nuclear attack – maybe a spurious attempt to minimise panic in the herd as the hammer fell and annihilation came rushing at a million degrees and a thousand miles a minute. Maybe something more.
Retreat under your desks and sit with your head between your knees, was the advice issued to schools via print and film. Utter bollocks, clearly – unless your school is equipped with an enormous lead-lined bunker and enough tinned food to last several thousand years, it’s not going to end well kids. Glaswegian art duo Littlewhitehead have taken the British government’s unnerving advice on evasive measures and proper preparation as their inspiration for Inner Refuge, a sculptural work at Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne – presented by blackartprojects. They see the Cold War as one propagated by fear, in which these films were used to remind people of a constant but silent threat, and to heighten vigilance to the point of paranoia, rather than to provide effective protection. It’s all over for Inner Refuge on 22 June.
