This and many more?

Artist Statement

This and many more? explores the conflicts that occurred during the period of colonisation and first resistance in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia, and how these conflicts affected the approach to development. I focus on specific events, such as the 1930 Salt March led by Mahatma Gandhi in India, retelling them via gestures and narratives that remove any direct link. Thus, the reenactments allow the viewer to read them with a different reference point, creating links between past and present conflicts, such as the exploitation of oil sands in Canada.

I use specific materials that trigger recognition in the viewer, but at the same time are ambiguous: is this an image of dry earth or a cracker that is brutally smashed and then divided by men? How does this act relate to the scramble for Africa’s resources and the financial crises the world is facing? Every element is interlinked.

The installation unfolds over two rooms. In the first are four barrels cast from polyester, fiberglass and metal dust. Each rusty-looking barrel widens at the top to create a large flat surface that functions as a screen. Four videos are projected onto these:

1. Many pairs of feet walk endlessly on a white, sand like surface.

2. A dry earth like surface is suddenly hit with a huge mallet and cracks into many pieces. Numerous male hands reach in to grab a piece.

3. Two male performers wearing dark suits stand on opposite sides of a thick pane of glass. One draws a line with salt along the floor, right up against the glass. The other, who wears a white mask, tries to jump over the line, but hits the glass and falls back.

4. A world map is made out of playing cards, written on the back of which are poems about the post colonial condition or the decolonization of the mind, for example Taban Lo Liyong’s “To Susan Sontag, with love” (1971).

The second room is a brightly lit white-cube gallery in which is a heap of 150 kilos of coarse salt, with space for people to sit around it.


2013

This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 11