Maisie Cousins x Steve Ignorant: Plastic Pink Pig,

2025,

Footnotes

Maisie Cousins wanted to collaborate with someone whose life and artistic path contrasted with her own - someone who could challenge her through difference. In Steve Ignorant of Crass, she found exactly that. Yet, in the process of working together, they uncovered a great deal of common ground. They bonded over a love for analogue processes and making, and on the beauty found in imperfection and accidents. Their shared appreciation of DIY culture - bold, messy, playful and raw - created a natural bridge between Maisie's tension of the beautiful and the grotesque, and Steve's punk ethos. From this emerged Plastic Pink Pig, which saw Maisie collaborate with her young daughter to put the set together. As Steve reflected during their conversation: "It's not about perfection - it's about honesty. That's what I want in a song, or a line, or a print."

Maisie Cousins is a British photographer whose bold, hyper‑saturated still‑life and body‑centric images explore the tension between desire and decay. Her series such as Grass, Peonie, Bum and Dipping Sauce use fleshy crops, insects, moulding objects and gleaming surfaces to challenge notions of beauty, femininity and the body. Cousins' work has been featured in institutions including the Tate Britain, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and she is recognized for redefining contemporary still life through a visceral, feminist lens.

Steve Ignorant is a pioneering figure in British punk, best‑known as co‑founder and frontman of the anarcho‑punk band Crass (1977–84). With Crass, he helped fuse raw punk energy with political radicalism, DIY ethics and a network of artist‑activists living at the communal Dial House in Essex. In subsequent decades he's remained active in various bands (including Stratford Mercenaries and Slice of Life), moved into spoken‑word, acoustic work and social projects (such as volunteering on a lifeboat and working as a traditional Punch & Judy performer). His career shows a consistent thread: challenging power, living his principles and adapting punk's urgency into varied artistic forms.

Provenance:
Donated directly by the artists to In Place of War for this sale.
All proceeds from the sale of this Lot will go to the charity In Place Of War, which is a global organisation that uses creativity in places of conflict as a tool for positive change.

MUSIC SHAPED is a project from non-profit organisation In Place of War that pairs musical and cultural icons with exceptional visual artists to create works reflecting how music has influenced their lives. The collaboration begins with a recorded conversation between the visual artist and musician, and results in the creation of a brand new artwork reflecting their conversations and creative journeys.

In Place of War is a UK-based, global organisation that uses artistic creativity in places impacted by conflict and climate change as a tool for positive change. In Place of War supports grassroots change-makers in music, theatre and visual art, to transform cultures of violence and suffering into hope, opportunity and freedom. Starting as a research project at the University of Manchester in 2004, initial research findings spurred practical projects and programming. Twenty years later, In Place of War works with a change-maker network of 130 creative organisations across 30 countries, all making lasting change in their communities. Artist ambassadors and fellow supporters include Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Martin Aitkens, Ed O'Brien, Peter Hook, Laurie Anderson and Nitin Sawhney.

Proceeds from the sale of MUSIC SHAPED artworks will support In Place of War's #HackMusic Programme, which provides critical catalyst funding to support the development of essential life-changing music projects with indigenous communities; LGBTQI+ artists; artists in conflict zones; and artists responding to the climate crisis.

For more information please visit: https://www.inplaceofwar.net/