Union Jack - Margaret Scott
Title: Union Jack 2021
Dimensions: Image Size: 80 x 106.6 cm, Outer Size: 84.4 x 111 cm, Alu-Dibond: 3 mm
Material: Direct Print on Aluminium Dibond with Floater Frame, Shadow gap frame (black oak)
Artist: Margaret Scott
Edition: Limited edition
Anticipation fills the face of a young mother-to-be while around her a Union Jack shatters. Scott returns to the motif of the crumbling Union Jack throughout Five Times More, juxtaposing portraits of joyful mothers-to-be against the shattered remains of the British national flag. The motif is Scott’s most blatant reference to the failures of British healthcare policy in treating black mothers. The NHS has for many has been a source of national pride; it was the first public healthcare system of its kind in granting Britons access to free healthcare on the basis of citizenship rather than payment of fees. With the introduction of the NHS and the corresponding improvement of modern medicine came a significant drop in infant and maternal mortality. However, the effects of public healthcare have not been felt equally, demonstrating the prevailing existence of structural racism in the public health system. While her subjects eagerly anticipate motherhood, they face a healthcare system which has continued to let down women of colour.