Mark McGowan
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Mark McGowan is a UK-based artist currently working at the Camberwell College of Arts, who has entered the news a number of times for his unconventional approach to public protest and demonstration.
He grew up in Peckham, on the North Peckham Estate [1], and has a degree in Fine Art from Camberwell College of Art, and an MA from Goldsmiths College [2].
He entered the headlines in 2004 whilst protesting about student debt. To achieve this he claimed to have rolled a peanut from London's Goldsmiths College to 10 Downing Street using only his nose. He followed this up by sitting in a bathtub full of baked beans with chips up his nose and sausages around his head, claiming to be the defender of the full English breakfast. His next effort involved pulling a bus with his big toe in protest at London's transport strategy. He has also cooked and eaten a fox to highlight the plight of "crackheads".
In April 2005 McGowan once more gained publicity after being accused of 'keying' cars in a number of cities, a practice involving the scratching of cars using a key. This attracted the attention of the police, though McGowan defended his actions in a television interview on Channel 4 News by stating that his actions had become "compulsive-obsessive" and that "I [McGowan] suppose it's like a social experiment testing why people do it."
He was back in the news in July 2005 for his installation "The Running Tap", where he left the water running in the backroom kitchen of a London gallery to protest leakage problems with London's private water company, Thames Water. His installation wasted 9,200 gallons of water a day, and if left on for a full year as he intended, would have wasted 3.9 million gallons of water and cost $23,320. It was turned off several times by protesters of the protest. He turned the tap off for good on 29 July following threats of legal action from the water company.
From Boxing Day, 2005 to January 6, 2006, McGowan crawled on all fours from London Bridge to Canterbury Cathedral. He pulled 18 boxes of chocolates on strings attached to his arms and legs and carried a sign saying: "Could you love me?". This is to highlight the loneliness felt by some around Christmas time.
Most of McGowan's protests are not fully carried out, but partially performed only when there is a media presence. This causes the press and public to assume that the acts were ongoing for the proposed period of time, hence sparking controversy. In doing this, the artist pokes fun at the media's tendency to 'believe anything you tell them'.
