Plenty sits Still, Hunger is a Wanderer

installation_1

image by Janelle Low

installation_2

image by Janelle Low

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

Kuzvuva Dumbu 2019

Kuzvuva Dumbu 2019 Found plastic-weave bags and wire frame 38 x 230 x 100 cm

The Modern Traveller 2016 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints
29,7 x 21 cm

Text taken from the poem The Modern Traveller (1898) by Hilaire Belloc

The Maxim gun was first used by Britain’s colonial forces in the 1893-1894 First Matebele War in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). It played an important role in the swift colonisation of Africa in the late 19th century. The extreme lethality was employed to devastating effect against obsolete charging tactics, when native opponents could be lured into pitched battles in open terrain. As it was put by Hilaire Belloc, in the words of the figure ‘Blood’ in his poem The Modern Traveller:

Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.

Lobengula’s troops were a disciplined force by pre-colonial African standards, and they were equipped with both assegais and Martini-Henry rifles, but the British pioneers’ Maxim guns, which had never before been used in battle, far exceeded expectations, according to an eyewitness ‘mow[ing] them down literally like grass’. By the time the Matebele withdrew, they had suffered about 1,500 fatalities; the British, on the other hand, had lost only four men. The annihilating effectiveness of the Maxims was such that they cut down wave after wave of advancing Matebele. In one engagement, for example, 50 company soldiers with just four Maxim guns fought off 5,000 Matebele warriors.