Modern Man, Where are we heading? - Lee Patrick Wilson

British Life 2019 where are we heading?

A man adorned with a St Georges Flag T-shirt leaves Ferens Art Gallery into the street, across the road two men stand guard holding heavy machine guns & side arms, dressed in black paramilitary uniform, akin to the comic book world of Judge Dredd than a British Bobby. They scan the crowd of weekend shoppers & day trippers, at their feet are placed concrete blocks which form fences for public spaces to deter vehicle attacks on the public, on the concrete block written "use both eyes" but no one does. A grandmother crosses the road facing two more heavily armed officers of the law, in the background a bus passes with the banner written "where are we heading" a poignant question, guns for safety, guns saving lives, a few hundred meters away a public phone box is filled with drug addicts, high on spice and other drug cocktails, the pressures of modern life proven to much for them, they roll the roulette wheel of life and death. The shop fronts long boarded up and abandoned, people sit alone in the empty openings of these former shop fronts begging for money, tents blankets and mattresses are spread around the backstreets, under a flyover a man lays on his makeshift bed, his leg dressed with a once white sock sticks out from the blanket, his belongings make a living quarter under the shelter of the cold concrete road, people pass by, no one helps, they give change to avoid death but nothing changes, first world living, a sample of city life, modern mans joy, this vision is repeated in every city & town across Britain, the aftermath of austerity & war, I ask myself whos happy now?

Where do we go from here?