The Empress

Sad news. Window Wonderland has been closed. I would like to say I am surprised, but I am not. I was almost expecting it. The exhibition was shut down after three consecutive nights of vandalism in central London. It escalated night by night. All six windows were spat on. The glass was deliberately chipped. On the final night the windows were smashed with an ice axe. Around £15,000 worth of damage. The work was removed for safety. The windows are now boarded up. This was not random. It was targeted. It was political. The attacks focused on anti-war work, including Peter Kennard’s response to conflict and Fa Razavi’s painting depicting women and children in Iran. A St George’s flag with a Union Jack sticker was left at the site. The words “Free UK” were written in lipstick directly in front of my installation. One of the works attacked was about motherhood. That tells you everything. I have been targeted and harassed for a long time. Online abuse. Coordinated harassment. Death threats. This attack marks the point where that behaviour moved from the internet into the physical world. Police are involved. CCTV is being reviewed. Movements around the site are being traced. The Foreign Office is aware. I am not intimidated. If anything, this makes me more vocal. I will write more. Publish more. Reach millions more people every week. I will make more work about exactly this moment. My next group exhibition will be based on what has happened here. I urge other artists, writers, and cultural workers to do the same. Something else happened. On the Sunday, people drove past the exhibition and thought the smashed windows were part of the work. They stopped. They looked. They talked. In a strange way, the attack became part of the exhibition itself. There is something chilling about smashed glass used as a political message. History has seen this before. When windows are broken to intimidate and silence, it is never just about the glass. It is about who is allowed to exist visibly and who is being warned. Whether the Nazis like it or not, they contributed. Since I shared what happened online, it has gone viral. People are responding. Engaging. Talking about the work and the ideas behind it. The attack made the exhibition more visible, more urgent, and more historically legible. It forced it into the public conversation. They didn’t silence anything. They amplified it. They made the work press worthy. They raised its value. They made it impossible to ignore. In trying to destroy it, they proved exactly why it mattered. The far right does not believe in freedom of speech. Their aim is silence. When artists are targeted for visibility, that is a serious warning sign for everyone. Fascism is sweeping Britain. It will get worse if this behaviour is normalised. I am offering artworks to the value of £10,000 for each name provided that leads to a conviction. I believe in the artists who took part in this exhibition. I believe in the integrity of the work. I believe in freedom of expression. Solidarity with the artists who were targeted: The Bomb Factory Art Foundation Be Andr Wankers of the World Peter Kennard Fa Razavi Alison Jackson This violence shows how strong the work was and how weak the far right is. I’d like to say the Artist is here to disturb the peace, but there is no peace. This is not normal. I will not be quieter because of this. I will be louder than ever. artplugged.co.uk/suspected-f… ashadedviewonfashion.com/202…