war mart

Jill Gibbon is a radical reportage artist. In her current project, War Mart she reverses the tradition of drawing in war zones, by drawing an aspect of war at home - the arms trade. War in the C21st is big business. Arms companies expanded into multinationals in the late 90s, as part of wider processes of globalization. With few ties to any state they sell to opposing sides of conflicts, to developing countries at inflated prices and to repressive regimes for ‘crowd control’. Many of these deals take place at arms fairs, trade shows where guns, missiles, tanks and tear gas are promoted with all the glitz of advertising. Jill draws inside these events, and caricatures the marketing in an attempt to strip away the glossy veneer. The website includes drawings of arms fairs, arms company AGMs and protests.