Downes's polemical practice uses art to comment upon or satirise socio-political phenomena. The four works on show address subjects ranging from housing and community in the UK to education, the leisure industry and lastly to the myths of the avant garde.

Colony is a to-scale replica of a "new build" housing estate window typical to those found all over Britain. Made as new in Stirling board, the material usually used to secure disused buildings, the work cynically implies the in-built failures structural/societal and psychological in the social engineering of the Barratts/Wimpey suburban middle class project.

Pirouette, made in conte board, synonymous with cheap modern furniture is primarily concerned with the culture industry, the changes in and myths of leisure time along with the false consciousness inherent in affordable "free time" activities.

History Boys, a graphical depiction of an arm wresting contest is made from two college scarves. Jesus college Cambridge and Darwin college Cambridge neck scarves have been manipulated to highlight both the patriarchal and elitist appropriation of history as well as the ever present creationist/evolutionist debate.

Of Coarse is an ironic portrait of a saintly looking Guy Debord cut from heavy-grade sandpaper in reference to the infamous book jacket from the first printing of Memoires, his 1959 collaboration with the painter Asger Jorn who actually invented the cover with the books printer.