Visual Rights, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, 16 Jan to 22 March 2020

Participating artists: Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Hagit Keysar, Yazan Khalili, Miki Kratsman and Shabtai Pinchevsky, and Corinne Silva. Curated by Gary Bratchford.

How do we visualise power? What does it look like, and for whom is it visible? Visual Rights looks at how images can expose uneven distributions of power, and shape the way we understand a place’s geography.

From early attempts at mapping the world, to modern satellite imagery, territories – and people’s right to inhabit them – have continually been established and redrawn, contested or removed. This process often becomes concentrated in areas of conflict and geographical contest: in recent history, this has included Ireland, Kashmir and Ukraine. Visual Rights presents work from artists in Israel, Palestine and the UK to examine this process.

Visual Rights brings together different methods of revealing how power subtly operates and affects the fabric of everyday life. The perspectives include surveying underground water pipelines that allow non-native plant life to flourish, photographing areas that have their electricity supply cut off at night, and the view from drones — a view that has become synonymous with modern conflict.