TEETH is a new video installation by London-based artist Jennifer Martin. The work has been developed through collaboration and discussion with UK-based immigrants, exploring the entanglement of love, power, and administration.
In January 2017, former Home Secretary Amber Rudd wrote, ‘Illegal and would-be illegal migrants and the public…need to know that our immigration system has “teeth”’. Her letter, written to then Prime Minister Theresa May, was leaked in April 2018 amid the Windrush Scandal. Teeth are the bite of the UK immigration system, its violence and desirous devouring.
In the film, an eager couple encounters a check of their Spousal Visa application. They re-enact text and email correspondence, and endure a fire-round of questioning. A Home Office agent acts as the personification of ‘teeth’; we follow them in their daily routine.
TEETH navigates how immigrants can be consumed by systems that seek to churn them up and spit them out – somewhere, elsewhere.
Produced by b.Dewitt in collaboration with Primary. TEETH is supported by the Stuart Croft Foundation and The Elephant Trust, using public funding by Arts Council England.