The People deserve beauty

McConnell’s work speaks to his experiences as a young man navigating the rave scene in Northern Ireland amid the Troubles. McConnell was part of a disaffected generation who found solace and release from cyclical recessions, dead-end jobs and social deprivation in the form of psychedelic drugs and Balearic dance music. It was a movement defined by long nights and long days, punctuated with hallucinogenic interludes, generating a visual haze that McConnell evokes in his imagery. Over 11 years, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government had inflicted endless neoliberal economic policies that segregated society and systematically weakened trade unions, depriving the working class of their public voice. Rave was a kind of defiance to state legislation. In many ways, the movements of that era parallel an attitude expressed by the masses today, who are exhausted by the government’s financial mismanagement, moral bankruptcy and authoritarian approach to overpowering any form of civil dissent. The amalgamation of Sports Banger’s with McConnell’s amplifies the need for meaningful events like The People Deserves Beauty, particularly during politically challenging times. Banger’s loud, inspiring fashion show, thrown despite an epic storm, and this subsequent document show us how peripheral cultural spaces can harness collective energies to create something beautiful.