Footsack Empire 2
Footsack Empire 2 2019 (photo by Janelle Low)
2018-2019
Z$4,358,055 2019
Z$4,358,055 2019 Map of Zimbabwean farming regions hand-woven with a progression of shredded Zimbabwean bank notes that amount to Z$4,358,055. 82 x 89 cm
This map shows the different farming regions in Zimbabwe and has been woven with now worthless amounts of Zimbabwean currency. This amount forms a coded message as certain numbers can be read as letters in the alphabet using some imagination.
This is designed to evade the censorship of communications critical of the government. In this case the numbers can be interpreted as reading YES BOSS.
image by Janelle Low
An Outpost of Progress 2019
An Outpost of Progress 2019 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 90 x 64 cm
An Outpost of Progress is a short story written in July 1897 by Joseph Conrad, drawing on his own experience at Congo. It was published in the magazine Cosmopolis in 1897 and was later collected in Tales of Unrest in 1898. Often compared with Heart of Darkness, Conrad considered it his best tale, owing to its “scrupulousness of tone” and “severity of discipline”.
Footsack Empire 2 2019
Footsack Empire 2 2019 Found Plastic-weave bags 97 x 185 cm
Voetsek is an Afrikaans word meaning ‘get lost’ or ‘go away’. The anglicised version of this is ‘footsack’.
image by Janelle Low
Rifugiato Mappa del Mondo (China-centric) 2019
Rifugiato Mappa del Mondo (China-centric)1 2019 Map of the world loosely based on infographics showing areas according to immigration and emigration statistics. Areas and routes with increased emigration are more worn than the destination countries, constructed out of new and found plastic-weave bags. This work was stitched together by Sibongile Tete, a Zimbabwean currently living in South Africa.
183 x 380 cm
Mhudi 2019
Mhudi 2019 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 292 x 101.5 x 8.5 cm
Mhudi (detail) 2019
Mhudi: An Epic of South African Native Life a Hundred Years Ago by Sol Plaatje is the first novel by a black South African. It was completed in 1920, but only published in 1930. In it Plaatje describes a period in South African history that offers a different perspective from the prevailing Euro-centric versions of the time.
Mhudi explores the period of the Mfecane when both the Zulu and Boer military and territorial aspirations led to catastrophic warfare and migration. It was a time when the racial fault lines of southern African politics of the last 100 year were drawn.
Mhudi follows the wonderings a woman and her husband whose Barolong (or Tswana) city of Kunana is sacked by Mzilikazi’s Matabele/Ndebele army who had broken away from Shaka’s Zulu empire. The novel details the military alliance of the Boers and Barolong who joined forces to defeat Mzilikazi and force the Matabele into modern day Zimbabwe. The novel explores notions of identity, belonging, statelessness and both racial tension and possible harmony. – M. Blackman
Dialogic 2 (New Languages for Dialogue about Section 25 of the South African Constitution) 2019 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 149 x 95 cm
Land has been a contested issue in southern Africa since the first colonial settlers started to claim it for themselves, thus depriving the local population of this terrain. In order to right this historical injustice, governments in the region have grappled with the idea of land expropriation without compensation.
In Zimbabwe the government went ahead with this strategy in the early 2000s. Coming from Zimbabwe I have first-hand experience of how this played out there with mixed results. Recently this issue has re-ignited debate in South African under President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Section 25 of the South African Constitution states that no one may be deprived of property. It is this clause that would need to change in order that land may be expropriated without compensation.
South Africa has eleven official languages and historically few white people bothered to learn a local tongue. This has not helped communication and understanding among different ethnic groups and has hindered the formation of a more inclusive culture. By interweaving two different languages I am attempting to create dialogue between various groups and possibly new dialects.
Dialogic means relates to or is characterized by dialogue and its use. A dialogic is communication presented in the form of dialogue. Dialogic processes refer to implied meaning in words uttered by a speaker and interpreted by a listener. Dialogic works carry on a continual dialogue that includes interaction with previous information supplied.
A dialogic process stands in contrast to a dialectic process (proposed by G. W. F. Hegel):
- In a dialectic process describing the interaction and resolution between multiple paradigms or ideologies, one putative solution establishes primacy over the others. The goal of a dialectic process is to merge point and counterpoint (thesis and antithesis) into a compromise or other state of agreement via conflict and tension (synthesis). “Synthesis that evolves from the opposition between thesis and antithesis.” Examples of dialectic process can be found in Plato’s Republic.
- In a dialogic process, various approaches coexist and are comparatively existential and relativistic in their interaction. Here, each ideology can hold more salience in particular circumstances. Changes can be made within these ideologies if a strategy does not have the desired effect.
These two distinctions are observed in studies of personal identity, national identity, and group identity.
all the languages on top of one another
The Land Vote 2019 Monopoly houses and hotels, Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints, soil 64.5 x 96.5 cm
Section 25 of the South African Constitution states that no one may be deprived of property. It is this clause that would need to change in order that land may be expropriated without compensation.
Section 74 of the South African Constitution outlines what is required to amend clauses in the Constitution. In parliament, it would require a two-thirds majority out of four hundred seats; 267 votes versus 133. The board game Monopoly was initially created with the intention of showing the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies. Using Monopoly houses and hotels – as metaphors for these votes, I illustrate this majority in parliament. Smaller green houses represent smallholdings in favour of change, whereas the larger red hotels are big business preferring the status quo.
Deleuze and Guattari 2019 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 23.8 x 17.2 cm
Elephant in Cairo 2019 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 29.7 x 21.3 cm
An elephant in Cairo is a term used in computer programming to describe a piece of data inserted at the end of a search space, which matches the search criteria, in order to make sure the search algorithm terminates; it is a humorous example of a sentinel value. The term derives from a humorous essay circulated on the Internet that was published in Byte magazine on September 1989, describing how various professions would go about hunting elephants. When hunting elephants, the article describes programmers as following this algorithm:
Go to Africa.
Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west,
During each traverse pass:
Catch each animal seen.
Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
Stop when a match is detected.
This algorithm has a bug, namely a bounds checking error: if no elephants are found, the programmer will continue northwards and end up in the Mediterranean sea, causing abnormal termination by drowning. Thus experienced programmers modify the above algorithm by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate. The modified algorithm is therefore as follows:
Go to Africa.
Put an elephant in Cairo.
Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west,
During each traverse pass:
Catch each animal seen.
Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
Stop when a match is detected.
If you are in Cairo, then there are no elephants in Africa (other than the one you placed there).
