Almost exactly five years ago, the ‘divorce’ agreement between the United Kingdom and Europe came into effect following the 2016 Brexit referendum and a period of fraught political negotiations. A Parliament of Empty Gestures was presented by artist Mark Duffy at Newcastle University’s MFA degree show in 2025. This multimedia installation composed of piled-up office furniture, from which gesticulating hands sprout in all directions, forms the latest instalment in the artist’s ongoing exploration of power and national identity.

Duffy, who is Irish, previously worked as a photographer at the House of Commons during the Brexit negotiations: a time of great public upheaval and collective anxiety. Using photography, he scrutinises the realities of the political arena – the processes, practices and material things that sustain the narratives spun from it – with a blend of intellect, absurdity, and humour.

In A Parliament of Empty Gestures, he appropriates photographs published by the House of Commons under a Creative Commons license to create a commentary on the theatrical nature of politics. With his focus on politicians’ hands, Duffy amplifies not only the performative aspects of political debate, but also the prevalence of finger-pointing and blame-shifting in contemporary governance.

JILKE GOLBACH is a curator at Foam, where she develops group and solo exhibitions of historic and contemporary photographs, including Martin Parr (2026), Verena Blok (2026) and Augusta Curiel (2025). She was previously Curator of Photographs at the Museum of London and has held curatorial positions at the Barbican Art Gallery in London and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. She has a specific interest in art and photography at the intersection of personal narratives and systemic critique, developing projects that engage with themes of gender, sexuality, wellbeing, and urban space, such as Phil Polglaze’s Bog Jobs: A Case For The Defence, first shown at Photo Oxford (2025). She has published widely on art and photography, including in titles such as Vitamin V: Video and the Moving Image in Contemporary Art (2025), Fracture: Ecology. Time. Humanity (2023), London in Lockdown (2021), and for 1000Words and Foam magazine. She holds a PhD from University College London.