Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press is a British artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores the relationship between language, image, power and conflict. Working across sculpture, drawing, film, performance, publishing and installation, she is renowned for transforming systems of communication into unexpected forms, testing the limits of language while examining the political, psychological and cultural forces that shape contemporary life.

For more than three decades, Banner has investigated the ways meaning is constructed and transmitted. Her work frequently addresses subjects associated with power and aggression, particularly military technology, conflict and spectacle, revealing the tensions that exist between language and violence. Whether transcribing films into text, reimagining fighter aircraft as monumental sculptures or turning words into physical forms, Banner’s practice consistently challenges the authority of images and exposes the contradictions embedded within contemporary systems of representation.

In 2024, Banner collaborated with CIRCA on DISARM, a major public commission that transformed a military flypast into an impossible call for global disarmament. As fighter jets emerged across an immense sky to spell the word “DISARM”, Banner inverted one of the most recognisable displays of military power, using the very machinery of conflict to advocate for its dismantling. Accompanied by a public soundscape in Piccadilly Circus and a nationwide fly-poster campaign across the United Kingdom, the commission responded directly to a moment of escalating global conflict, inviting audiences to consider disarmament not only in military terms but also as a broader act of intellectual, social and political resistance.

Central to Banner’s contribution to CIRCA was her conviction that language remains one of the most powerful tools available for imagining alternatives to violence. In DISARM, words become action, aspiration and contradiction simultaneously. By orchestrating a collective performance between symbols of opposing military powers, the work transformed public space into a site of reflection, dissent and possibility.

Banner’s work has been exhibited internationally at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Venice Biennale, the Hayward Gallery and numerous major institutions worldwide. Through a practice that continually interrogates the relationship between language and power, she has established herself as one of the most important voices in contemporary British art, creating works that challenge audiences to reconsider the systems, structures and assumptions that govern everyday life.