‘The drill scene was dead. They’d locked everyone up’: RIP Germain on his shocking coffin installation

‘Society is placing an outrageous level of expectation on these people’ … 101 Hour Psycho by RIP Germain is at Cabinet gallery, London. Photograph: Mark Blower/Mark Blower, courtesy RIP Germain and Cabinet.

‘A generation has been completely wiped out,” says Luton-born artist RIP Germain. He’s talking about the UK drill scene, a subject he explores in his latest exhibition. In an image used to publicise the show, we see the faces of 42 rappers, all of them in prison.

“In autumn last year, there was literally no one,” he says. “The scene was actually dead, everyone was locked up.”