Yes, yes, we’re all very happy for that squaddie marrying his unemployed girlfriend – y’know, Billy Windsor and Kate Whatsname – but we wouldn’t be truly British if we weren’t pouring just a little cynical scorn on the proceedings. So we love the irreverent approach to the Great British Empire by Carrie Reichardt in her new Ink_d solo exhibition Cruel Britannia.

While others lob fire extinguishers off rooftops, Carrie’s bringing the system to its knees in an altogether more genteel way, subverting the Establishment’s time-honoured tea-towel iconography with an amusing anarchic vision. The Houses of Parliament aflame with a shit-hungry fly buzzing above, treasured jubilee merch subjected to crass sixth-form sloganeering and coronation busts superimposed with boxer dogs. Not so long ago she’d have had her head on a spike for this, but luckily for her this Britannia isn’t actually that cruel anymore.

Ink_d until Sun 10th
WORDS BY NICK COQUET