kennardphillipps is a collaboration between Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps, an East London duo who have been working together since 2002 to produce art in response to the invasion of Iraq. Since 2002, their work has evolved to confront power and war across the globe - their work is made for the street, the gallery, the web, newspapers and magazines. It is made as a critical tool that connects to international movements for social and political change.

“We don’t see the work as separate to social and political movements that are confronting established political and economic systems. We see it as part of those movements, the visual arm of protest. We want it to be used by people as a part of their own activism, not just as pictures on the wall to contemplate.”

However, using art for activism isn’t so easy: Photo Op, a constructed image by kennardphillipps was banned from public display in 2013. Advertisers refused to display it as a part of the Imperial War Museum’s advertising campaign for their ‘Catalyst’ exhibition. The image had previously been shown at Tate Britain, at Banksy’s Santa’s Ghetto on Oxford Street and in numerous other exhibitions. It was printed full-page in The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian and The Independent, and has been bought by the National Galleries Scotland, the V&A and the Imperial War Museum for their own collections. It was even used by the British Council in an exhibition of British art in New Delhi, India.

Yet when the Imperial War Museum decided to use it as the lead image in a campaign to advertise their 2013-14 exhibition, there was uproar from the advertising companies. It was to be used on bus stops, newspapers, billboards, a standard exhibition ad campaign, but all unanimously refused to display the image. The museum had to scrap the entire campaign (along with the Blair "selfie"), and choose an image more to the corporations’ liking.

Kennardphillipps reflected on this:

“Try and show an artwork that is prophetically anti-war and has enjoyed huge public popularity, even within the context of a major new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, and the message suddenly becomes anti-business. It doesn’t serve company profits.”