The selection in this gallery examines various legacies of British Imperialism and the multiple ways in which these have come to influence our world view. It includes pieces examining the history and legacies of the slave trade, as well as work investigating the impact of racial profiling on national boundaries and surveillance across what has been described as ‘Fortress Europe’. This term is sometimes used to refer to the way Europe controls its borders as well as to what some people see as resentment towards migration.

The exhibits include Piper’s time-based works from the 1990s, transferred from their original mediums such as video tapes to digital media. The artist remade some of these especially for the exhibition and is exhibiting them for the first time since the 1990s.

During the 1980s Piper began generating a cut-and- paste multilayered aesthetic which characterised his practice in the following decade. Access to home computing systems such as the Commodore Amiga in the late 1980s, coupled with an ongoing interest in sampling and visual montage, led Piper to experiment with video and audio. Rather than involving linear narratives, these pieces mash together dense collages of found or generated images with sounds.
Painting, collage, photography and audio are combined and overlaid by ambiguous exchanges of images and text. During this time of experimentation Piper started weaving together digital montage and scripted audio dialogue, which provides a prelude to two of the video works in the final gallery.