ROGERS, Tina, Panopticon © Tina Rogers
Panopticon is a collage/painting of a circular prison made up of the artist’s genuine Personal Independence Payment Form (PIP).
In 1791 philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham came up with the idea of ‘Panopticon’, a circular prison. Where all the ‘prisoners’ are observed by a single central person, meaning the inmates do not know when they are being watched. The fact that the inmates do not know when they are being watched motivates them to act as though they are all being watched at all times, making them ‘compliant’ through fear, much like disabled people on benefits.
ROGERS, Tina, Panopticon (detail) © Tina Rogers
ROGERS, Tina, Panopticon (detail) © Tina Rogers
Applying for PIP is traumatic, the medical we are forced to endure is dehumanising and we are constantly terrified of being found ‘fit for work’. The recent news coverage revealing that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will soon have the power to access all benefits claimants’ personal information (bank account and social media) caused an uproar, however, the DWP has ALWAYS been able to access this – ‘in case of fraud’. They can also watch you at any time of the day in a disguised car, and follow you, just in case you are not as disabled as you say you are (in other words a parasite, dole scum, a scrounger…)
Panopticon. We’ve always been watched and judged.
ROGERS, Tina, Panopticon (detail) © Tina Rogers
ROGERS, Tina, Panopticon (detail) © Tina Rogers
ROGERS, Tina, Panopticon (detail) © Tina Rogers
Tina Rogers is a working-class, self-taught, disabled artist, writer, and film maker from a small mining village in north Wales.
Her work explores her lived experience as a disabled woman.
