Over the past two years I have felt increasingly concerned over how our government handles public issues. Whether that be the climate crisis, the refugee crisis, the safeguarding of women, racial inequalities or the global pandemic. But over the past two years I have also seen people come together to stand against the government and protest. Now the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill proposes giving more power to the police to control these protests and I wanted to find out how people in Stoke on Trent feel about it?

I created the audio piece An Opinionated Sound: No Comment for Urban Wilderness as part of their The Happenings new festival of public art. I wanted to raise awareness of the changes being proposed in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill, not only to inform people who were unaware of the bill, but also to encourage discussions highlighting key elements that may be detrimental to the general public.

To create this work I needed to collect a variety of opinions so started interviewing members of the public and the local authorities. Once all the interviews were recorded via Zoom I edited them together to create an audio piece that I hoped would represent the opinions of people from Stoke on Trent on the P.C.S.C bill.

Stills from Zoom interviews held during 2021

I had expected a lot of negative opinions around the bill but I didn’t expect to get such little positive feedback, even from the police.

“I don’t know if I can get involved in it as we are meant to be impartial in our role” police officer
“We wouldn’t comment on the bill” police press office
“Sorry I won’t be contributing this time, good luck with the projects” Staffordshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner

It felt as if all the authorities were able to respond with was “no comment” which is the only way I have been able to represent their opinion in this piece.

Click on the image below to hear Harry Jukes’ audio work and leave your comments below.