My background is made up of a front page cut-out from "The Independent" newspaper and one of my own photographs. The photograph was taken at Brian Haw's peace protest outside Houses of Parliament about Iraq's freedom initially from international sanctions, and now the American led coalition's occupation of the country. Although I disagree with the initial protest on the international sanctions of Iraq I do agree wholeheartedly on what is now the bigger issue of the military occupation. The Independent cut-out is about Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader to Robert Mugabe's dictatorship regime in Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai was severely beaten by Mugabe's secret police, in Mugabe's attempt to squash Zimbabwe's freedom.

These three characters are made up from a series of self-portraits made especially for this, they are (from left to right); the protester, the money-maker and the hoodie. These three characters represent different types of people we come across within society, the protester and the hoodie share similar sympathetic views towards social/political freedom whereas the money-maker undermines its values. My reasoning behind this is that the money-maker underestimates freedom because he does not see it as being important due to the financial position he is in. He believes that power and wealth is more important than ideals such as freedom, whereas the protester and the hoodie can't afford the same luxuries that the money-maker takes for granted, therefore regarding freedom highly. In my eyes the money-maker can be used to represent many different people in the world, from the dictators of countries to the managers of companies, all whom I have stereotyped as the money-maker.