June by Tereza Červeňová

Created by a European artist living and working in the UK, June is an autobiographical response to the EU referendum. The month of June 2016 signified a rupture where the meaning of home and future plans were suddenly thrown into limbo for Cervenová - born into a generation who has known nothing other than being part of the European project, with the ability to travel, study, work and fall in love anywhere in Europe. For her, the referendum signified something being snatched away. Coinciding with the beginning of her MA at the Royal College of Art, Cervenová spent the following 23 months diaristically documenting daily life. Taken in various locations across Britain and Europe, each image is titled simply by the location and date in which it is made, the significance of this becomes apparent when read on mass. St James Park, London 2nd June 2016: The date of London’s first big anti-Brexit march merging with Pride; Nice, France, 14th July, Bastille Day, 2016: the day a truck was driven into celebratory crowds in the same city. Shadwell, London, 27th January, 2017: The day President Trump announced his ‘Muslim ban’ and Borough Market, London, 8th June 2017: the day of the hastily called general election, but also five days after the terror attacks at Borough Market. When viewed in retrospect, the work emerges as not only a record of daily events, but as a timeline of significant dates that will, or have already become, marker points in history.