Artistic resistance and the visuality of aerial imperial violence …with David Birkin (Part One)

This is Part One of a very special two-part episode with David Birkin, artist, writer, Senior Lecturer in Photography at the London College of Communication (University of the Arts London) and currently, a Visiting Fellow in Art History at the University of Cambridge. David is known for a wide-ranging body of photography-led installations and large-scale visual performances that confront state violence and imperial power, while also enacting forms of creative resistance to them. In a conversation that is as emotionally resonant as it is captivating, we explore his practice and the questions that shape it: how images circulate power, how visual culture sustains imperial violence, and how art can intervene in these processes. We also discuss his ongoing doctoral research into histories of resistance and disarmament in the British imperial context — what he brilliantly describes as tracing “the history of the imperial through the lens of the aerial” — and consider its urgent relevance today, amid the genocide in Gaza and ongoing violence elsewhere in the world. David is a true creative, a very exciting scholar, and a committed advocate for social justice, whose work reminds us that images of war are never neutral and that visual representations of violence are always bound up with questions of power, responsibility, and justice. Part Two is out next week, featuring a discussion of David’s three selected images. David’s website: https://www.davidbirkin.net Notes1. This conversation was recorded before the ceasefire in Gaza in October 2025. 2. David's selected images will be discussed in Part Two of this conversation, posted next week, so the images will be linked then.