Said Adrus

Zeitgeist is an iconic image of the racial discord and urban 1980s ‘riots’ across various British cities. While these ‘riots’ do not explain the social-political conditions for the wider racial discontent of the 1980s, they were an important catalyst in the demand for black social and political representation and justice. The ‘riots’ do symbolically mark the racial turmoil and social anger of the 1980s. By freezing a scene from the numerous urban conflicts, it symbolizes the racial antagonism of the period, as well as anticipating the continual periodic scenes of rioting since then from the Bradford riots of 2001 to the 2013 London riots. The work acts like a trigger engendering memory, the act of remembering countering the post-racial amnesia from the 1980s onwards.