Plenty sits Still, Hunger is a Wanderer 2015
Plenty sits Still, Hunger is a Wanderer 2014 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints
110 × 150 cm
detail
2010-2014
Transnational Block 1 2014
Transnational Block 1 2014 Hand-woven ink-jet prints
64 x 90 cm
Transnational Block 2 2014
Transnational Block 2 2014 Hand-woven ink-jet prints
64 x 90 cm
Transnational Block 3 2014
Transnational Block 3 2014 Hand-woven ink-jet prints
64 x 90 cm
These cheap Chinese-made plastic-weave bags have become almost synonymous with refugees and poorer migrants the world over, much like the carpet- bags of centuries gone by. Today the movement of these people is as contentious as ever.
The bags are frequently named after the most common immigrant demographic in an area. They are colloquially dubbed things like: ‘Ghana Must Go’ bags in Nigeria, ‘Türken Koffer’ or ‘Polen Tasche’ in Germany, ‘Guyanese Samsonite’ in the Caribbean, ‘Bangladeshi Bag’ in the UK, and ‘Shangaan or Zimbabwe Bag’ in South Africa.
I have been working with these bags as a material in my art for some time. During a residency in Scotland I had Johnston’s of Elgin translate the pattern found on these bags into a high-end tartan fabric.
This series of 3 isometric cubes documents my process of working with this pattern. The isometric projection is a method for showing three-dimensional objects in technical and engineering drawings as well as in pixel art. These are building blocks or voxels for immigrants. They also bring to mind the isometric cubes of Sol LeWitt.
Workshop 37 – Dan Halter Parco Arte Vivente (PAV) Turin, Italy 2014
Mesembryanthemum Space Invader 2014 Delosperma cooperi
Dimensions vary
Mesembryanthemum plants originate from southern Africa and they are seen as an invasive species here in Italy. In planting this variety at the PAV I am introducing an African colony of immigrant vegetation to the European landscape. This mirrors what is happening currently on a human scale, and echoes the history of European colonization in Africa. Who and what dictates whether the movement of people, flora and fauna around the world is invasive or not? Only time will tell if the Mesembryanthemum Space Invader will take over the PAV…
From the exhibition Vegetation as a Political Agent curated by Marco Scotini at PAV
http://atpdiary.com/exhibit/vegetation-as-a-political-agentpav-torino/
Money code map series
Big bosses
Seize soil
Hells bells
She hoes soil
He begs booze
Bob is boss
Z$535,508,918
Z$535,508,918 2013 Map of Zimbabwean farming regions hand-woven with a progression of shredded Zimbabwean bank notes that amount to Z$535,508,918
82 x 89 cm
Z$710,532,135
Z$710,532,135 2013 Map of Zimbabwean farming regions hand-woven with a progression of shredded Zimbabwean bank notes that amount to Z$710,532,135
82 x 89 cm
Z$5,773,857,734
Z$5,773,857,734 2013 Map of Zimbabwean farming regions hand-woven with a progression of shredded Zimbabwean bank notes that amount to Z$5,773,857,734
82 x 89 cm
Z$71,055,304,345
Z$71,055,304,345 2013 Map of Zimbabwean farming regions hand-woven with a progression of shredded Zimbabwean bank notes that amount to Z$71,055,304,345
82 x 89 cm
Z$32,008,593,834
Z$32,008,593,834 2013 Map of Zimbabwean farming regions hand-woven with a progression of shredded Zimbabwean bank notes that amount to Z$32,008,593,834
82 x 89 cm
Z$550,851,808
Z$550,851,808 2013 Map of Zimbabwean farming regions hand-woven with a progression of shredded Zimbabwean bank notes that amount to Z$550,851,808
82 x 89 cm
Wanderers Taxi Rank 2013
10:25am 16 September 2009, Wanderers Taxi Rank, Johannesburg 2013 Hand-woven archival Inkjet prints
69 x 49 cm
Wanderers Taxi Rank 2013
detail
South Africa / Zimbabwe Border Fence 2013
South Africa / Zimbabwe Border Fence 2013 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints
88 x 64 cm
The border fence, inherited from the apartheid era, is set a few hundred metres south of the international border, which runs down the centre of the limpopo river. It has three lines of razor wire with an electric fence between, and the voltage can be calibrated from deadly to the uncomfortable electric tingle used for game fencing.
A survey in 2005 by army trackers compared human tracks crossing through the fence to those apprehended by the police. they found that only about 15 percent of undocumented migrants were caught.
http://www.irinnews.org/report/89262/south-africa-troops-reinforcing-a-porous-and-dangerous-border
The Great Grey-Green, Greasy Limpopo River 2013
The Great Grey-Green, Greasy Limpopo River 2013 Hand-woven archival inkjet prints
90 × 64 cm
Pale Blue Dot 2013
Pale Blue Dot 2013 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints
150 × 110 cm
“look again at that dot. that’s here. that’s home. that’s us. on it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. the aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. there is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. like it or not, for the moment the earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. to me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Pale blue dot 2013 detail
detail
Swimming Home 2013
Swimming Home 2013 Hand-woven archival Inkjet prints
69 × 49 cm
‘The Swimmer’ is a short story by American author John Cheever, first published in The New Yorker in 1964. The tale reminds me of a particular mindset and situation that I find familiar to a certain class of white people I knew growing up in the last days of Rhodesia, and then Zimbabwe. Although the narrative is set in North American suburbia, it is an allegory that I think fits especially well into this Southern African context. the story is a blend of realism and surrealism and explores themes of loss, the inevitable passage of time and self-deception, all in a drunken haze.
Swimming Home 2013
detail
The Veldt 2013
The Veldt 2013 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints
42 × 62 cm (short story by Ray Bradbury)
The Veldt detail 2013
detail
