Alex Urso's Anti-Brexit Art Residency in London

Alex Urso, an Italian artist, completed a residency in London titled 'London is open', organized by Art Apartments in collaboration with the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art. The residency, conceived by Laura Bertollo and Alessia Pirolo, invited Italian artists to create site-specific works in rental apartments. Urso's project 'Look how far I come' comprised two parts: a flag merging the Greater London flag and the Refugee Nation flag, and a performance where he knocked on doors across London (zones 1-6) to exchange doormats. His new doormat read 'WELCOME'; if the resident agreed with the message, they swapped doormats; if not, Urso kept theirs. The final installation displayed the collected doormats—those of welcome facing up, those of refusal facing down. Urso noted unexpected resistance in affluent Islington, where Brexit was rejected, and more openness in peripheral areas. He plans to continue the theme in a future residency starting March.