This Thesis is concerned with how history is narrated in two selected works by the British artists, Tacita Dean and Jeremy Deller. Chapter one considers Deller's The Battle of Orgreave (2001), a reenactment of a violent miners' strike against Margaret Thatcher's government in 1984-1985. The reenactment brought together reenactment hobbyist and ex-miners to perform the events at Orgreave and created a discourse around the imagined historical role of the working classes. Chapter two examines Dean's book Teignmouth Electron (1999), which recounts the failed voyage of Donald Crowhurst, one of the contestants of the 1967 Golden Globe Race who committed suicide after developing 'time-madness' at sea. She offers the history of this individual as a point of entry into middle-class aspirations in England in the 1960s. Produced at the turn of the 21st century when Britain's New Labour government was instigating an image of a New Britain to match its bygone glory, both works look back to moments in the past that epitomize the decline of the country's old order. Unearthing instances of failure and defeat, each artist offers an alternative glance at Britain's past and present condition than the one promoted by New Labour.

This Thesis is concerned with how history is narrated in two selected works by the British artists, Tacita Dean and Jeremy Deller. Chapter one considers Deller's The Battle of Orgreave (2001), a reenactment of a violent miners' strike against Margaret Thatcher's government in 1984-1985. The reenactment brought together reenactment hobbyist and ex-miners to perform the events at Orgreave and created a discourse around the imagined historical role of the working classes. Chapter two examines Dean's book Teignmouth Electron (1999), which recounts the failed voyage of Donald Crowhurst, one of the contestants of the 1967 Golden Globe Race who committed suicide after developing 'time-madness' at sea. She offers the history of this individual as a point of entry into middle-class aspirations in England in the 1960s. Produced at the turn of the 21st century when Britain's New Labour government was instigating an image of a New Britain to match its bygone glory, both works look back to moments in the past that epitomize the decline of the country's old order. Unearthing instances of failure and defeat, each artist offers an alternative glance at Britain's past and present condition than the one promoted by New Labour.

This Thesis is concerned with how history is narrated in two selected works by the British artists, Tacita Dean and Jeremy Deller. Chapter one considers Deller's The Battle of Orgreave (2001), a reenactment of a violent miners' strike against Margaret Thatcher's government in 1984-1985. The reenactment brought together reenactment hobbyist and ex-miners to perform the events at Orgreave and created a discourse around the imagined historical role of the working classes. Chapter two examines Dean's book Teignmouth Electron (1999), which recounts the failed voyage of Donald Crowhurst, one of the contestants of the 1967 Golden Globe Race who committed suicide after developing 'time-madness' at sea. She offers the history of this individual as a point of entry into middle-class aspirations in England in the 1960s. Produced at the turn of the 21st century when Britain's New Labour government was instigating an image of a New Britain to match its bygone glory, both works look back to moments in the past that epitomize the decline of the country's old order. Unearthing instances of failure and defeat, each artist offers an alternative glance at Britain's past and present condition than the one promoted by New Labour. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

Es zeichnet sich seit den 1990er-Jahren die Tendenz ab, dass sich viele Künstler/innen verstärkt mit Subjekten statt mit Objekten beschäftigen. Hinzu kommt eine zunehmende „Kollektivierung und Theatralisierung der einst auf Singularität und Präsenz setzenden Performance“. In diesem Zusammenhang sind auch immer mehr künstlerische Arbeiten zu registrieren, die mit Prozessionen und Paraden eine Vielzahl von Menschen auf die Straße bringen und in Bewegung versetzen. Dies spiegelt sich auch in einer immer größer werdenden Zahl thematischer Ausstellungen wider, die sich diesen Arbeiten widmen. Bereits 2004 konstatierte Pablo Lafuente in seinem Essay „Art on Parade“ in Art Monthly: „That ability of the parade to create subjectivity is where the artist’s political aspiration lies.“ Die künstlerisch-ästhetischen Praktiken von Francis Alÿs, Matthew Barney, Mierle Laderman Ukeles und Jeremy Deller, die Gegenstand der vorliegenden Untersuchung sind, könnten unterschiedlicher nicht sein. Ihre Gemeinsamkeit liegt in der performativen Verwendung eines sehr alten traditionellen Handlungsmusters, das den meisten Menschen vertraut ist. Die Prozession ist eine ritualisierte Handlung, die in unseren Breiten zuallererst mit der christlichen beziehungsweise der katholischen Liturgie in Zusammenhang gebracht wird. Die Grundbedeutung des Begriffs (von lat. processio = Zug, Geleit) als ein zielgerichtetes, geordnetes, gemeinsames Gehen, das den Raum gliedert und ihm dabei Bedeutung verleiht, umfasst jedoch den kultischen ebenso wie den profanen Umzug. So begegnen uns Prozessionen in vielen Bereichen des kulturellen Lebens. Dementsprechend beschäftigt sich diese Dissertation mit Prozessionen, Paraden und Karnevalsumzügen, deren Grundmotiv das gemeinsame, öffentliche, oftmals um einen Gegenstand herum organisierte Gehen, also die Prozession in ihrem allgemeinen Sinne ist. / Ever since the 90s, the tendency of many artists increasingly dealing with subjects instead of objects has become apparent. In this context, more and more artistic works that take a multitude of people to the streets or set them in motion as part of a procession or parade can be registered. This is also reflected in a growing number of themed exhibitions exploring these works. The artistic-aesthetic practice of Francis Alÿs, Matthew Barney, Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Jeremy Deller could hardly be more different. Their common ground can be found in the performative use of a very old traditional pattern of action that most people are familiar with. The procession is a ritualised act, which - in this part of the world – is first and foremost implicated in Christian respectively Catholic liturgy. The basic meaning of this term (derived from Latin processio – progression/cortege) as a purposeful, orderly, collective walk structuring and thus giving meaning to a certain space comprises, however, the sacral as well as the profane procession. This is way we can encounter processions in many parts of cultural life (and in almost every culture). This dissertation accordingly explores processions, (carnival) parades and demonstrations which all share the basic motif of a collective, public organised walk, often around an object, i.e. a procession in its general sense.

Could a performative reconstruction of the past be considered urban praxis? And if so, how? This paper analyses the connections between critical spatial and urban practices and embodied practices of remembering, by which historical reconstructions of the past are performed by collective bodies and communities in historical settings and heritage sites. Embodied practices of remembering include historical festivals, mediaeval fairs, battle reenactments, and living dioramas that relate to our common past, shifting between mediating experience and what is referred to as “doing history”. Immersing the participant in a mediated past, such practices make use of sensuousness and affect to produce and disseminate knowledge, playing with specific relationships between times [past-present] and spaces [urban-rural]. More specifically, this paper will inquire into how embodied practices of remembering reconfigure established understandings of the concepts of authenticity, accessibility and antagonism by analysing a widely cited example, Jeremy Deller’s 'The Battle of Orgreave' [UK, 2001].