Photo Credit: Alekia Gill
A former military drill hall is where you’ll find The Small Print by Kerry Simms. The A-listed building is now home to a community arts and education centre, and Simms is their latest resident artist. The Small Print may seem simple at first glance, but its inspirations are far from elementary.
The main inspiration for Simms’ show is Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy, a nonfiction book which investigates the hidden intricacies behind financial empires. Written by journalists Claire Provost and Matt Kennard, the book examines how the complexities of corporate systems make it easier for their corruption to go unchecked.
Layering paint on paper, paper on paper, and paper on wood, Simms creates circuit boards that obscure themselves, acting as topologies of these shady international structures – but is there any humanity hidden in the binaries?
Though Simms’ technical process is clear in her sharp lines and modular constructions, human touch comes through in faded print marks and colour combinations, where even the placement of the work marks its irreplaceability. As plasticky AI replications of art are becoming more pervasive than ever, Simms’ artistry flips the tables – she is a living interloper in a computerised world.
Our natural instincts lead us to see familiar shapes and faces in the blocky mazes – skyscrapers in one, factories in another. In some, you might even think you’re seeing outlines of countries. Each is its own little world – perhaps a dystopian vision of what is seen when you pull back the curtain, with the motherboard servicing reality. Just when you think you have reached the core behind Simms’ layers, she spreads another one on.
Boards act as dividers between pieces, forcing viewers to physically manouevre themselves around the panels to see the rest of the exhibit. Prints are hung with binder clips (a corporate staple, if you’ll pardon the pun) or mounted on wooden boards. Some are made to look as if they are floating in front of the walls themselves, emblems of omnipotent and omnipresent economic systems that hide behind our everyday.
After forcing us to search for humanity in her cyber-landscapes, Simms leaves us wondering where to find our capitalist society, and whether there’s any human touch in its procedures.
The Small Print, Kerry Simms, is on at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Dalmeny Street, Edinburgh, until 12 July 2025.
