Spacewar!

2019
Dawood, Shezad
Shezad Dawood works across film, textiles, print, painting and sculpture to explore how different systems of language, site and narrative can exist within and between these forms. His work often involves collaboration and is particularly concerned with acts of editing and re-staging. Spacewar!, 2019, is a tapestry depicting the video game Defender (launched 1981). Living in Karachi, Pakistan in the 1980s the artist would raid his grandmother’s handbag for change to spend at the local arcade. It was later that Dawood considered how games like Defender and Space Invaders, which are fundamentally about territorial integrity, were flooding Pakistan across a similar timeline to Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s coup in 1977 and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
  • Artwork Details: 159 x 116cm
  • Edition: 2 of 3 + 1 AP
  • Material description: Tapestry in teak artist's frame
  • Credit line: © the artist. Image courtesy of the artist and Timothy Taylor, London
  • Theme:
  • Medium: Print
  • Accession number: ACC23/2020

Share

Close
Artists
Artworks
Exhibitions
Articles
Other

The Arts Council Collection is the UK's most widely seen collection of modern and contemporary art.

With more than 8,000 works by over 2,000 artists, it can be seen in exhibitions and public displays across the country and beyond. This website offers unprecedented access to the Collection, and information about each work can be found on this site.