Tina Hage

The series “The One That Couldn’t Get Away” uses found images of games played in English public schools. Games include “Pancake Greaze”, which is played at Westminster School where a pancake is tossed in the air and students fight to grab the largest piece, and the “Eton Wall” game, which resembles Rugby Union.
The photographs emphasise the physicality and conflict of the games, yet there is a humour in the incongruity of boys in suits and ties wrestling for a pancake. Hage subverts the image by replacing the male bodies with her own and as a woman of mixed descent highlighting the power dynamics of the scene. These games have been played for hundreds of years and are part of the tradition and legacy of institutions which have produced a high proportion of Britain’s political elite (19 British Prime Ministers and a number of members of the Royal family).