Next ISRF Book Launch: Gifts from the Arms Trade
Join us on 17th September, at the MayDay Rooms in London, to celebrate the publication of Jill Gibbon's 'Gifts from the Arms Trade', featuring the photography of Ricky Adam..
How did continuous warfare become normal in the 21st century? How did police in many countries start using military hardware to manage ordinary crowds?
MayDay Rooms, London | 6pm BST, 17th September 2026 | Click Here to Register
Jill Gibbon’s new book Gifts from the Arms Trade reveals part of the answer to these questions: massive arms fairs, the trade shows for military equipment, which combine displays of the world’s most lethal tanks, missiles, and fighter jets with cute promotional gifts. She reports on the combination of drones hanging from ceiling and penetration bombs on the floor, all wrapped in a fun atmosphere of corporate hospitality sealed with chewable candy.
Jill Gibbon - Emeritus Reader at the Leeds School of Arts, Leeds Beckett University and an ISRF Early Career Fellow 2017-18 for the project The Etiquette of the Arms Trade - is a “war artist” known for her ethnographies of the corporate side of the global weapons trade. Here she uses promotional gifts she has collected from the fairs, photographed by Ricky Adam, to give an insight into this lethal industry that continues to reshape the world. She and a panel of commentators will discuss her extensive collection of images of arm fair gifts, and will put them in the context of the practice of war and arms dealing today.
Jill will be joined by Simon Morris, Emeritus Professor in the Leeds School of Arts at Leeds Beckett University, artist, and co-editor of Inscription; and Anna Stavrianakis, Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex and author of Taking Aim at the Arms Trade. NGOs, Global Civil Society and the World Military Order (Zed Books, 2010).
A Q&A will follow, moderated by Christopher Newfield, ISRF Director of Research.