If there's one single blatant lesson to be learned (or relearned) from ITV's Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, it's that art has the capacity to make a difference. The truth about the Post Office/Fujitsu scandal has been in the open for some time, and widely reported (not only in the pages of Private Eye and Computer Weekly, as some have suggested), but nothing had happened. Then the drama aired, the public response has been huge and the government have belatedly capitulated, pressured into hurried action while shamelessly claiming to be warriors of justice.
It's similarly encouraging to see the impact that the recent pop-up exhibition of photographer Marc Davenant's Outsiders series seems to have had.
The photos expose the horrors of homelessness - importantly, not only for those sleeping rough on the streets, but also for those trapped in "temporary" accommodation that often turns out to be long term as well as inadequate. The images have been published in a Bluecoat book and displayed in various galleries (most recently in Birkenhead, I think) - but surely nowhere as significant as in the Houses of Parliament. After all, MPs actually have the power to do something about the situation, so confronting them with the reality of life for thousands of people might prove to be a vital catalyst for change. It's harder to ignore what's right underneath your nose.
Davenant has been disappointed by the photography establishment's response to Outsiders and irritated by the suggestion that the work lacks artistic merit - a suggestion that is at very least debatable. However, he continues to insist that the focus should not fall on him or the images themselves, but on the people in them - and the bigger picture.
The success of Outsiders, like that of Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, will be measured in terms of whether it shames politicians into committing to address the scourge of homelessness genuinely and ideally structurally too - that is, through prevention rather than cure. Here's hoping.
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