Kure Kwegava Ndokusina Mutsubvu 2014
Kure Kwegava Ndokusina Mutsubvu 2014 Found plastic-weave bag, custom-made tartan fabric
65 x 70 cm
Pack for Perth 2015
Pack for Perth 2015 Found plastic-weave bag, custom-made tartan fabric
65 x 70 cm
Pack for Perth (detail) 2015
detail
Carpetbaggers 2015
Carpetbaggers 2015 Woven carpet, 247 × 222 cm showing the different European Colonial territories in Africa after the Berlin Conference.
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.
Space Invader (Expat 1) 2015
Space Invader (Expat 1) 2015 Found plastic weave bags 185 x 120 cm
This is an isometric diagram of a Space Invader, or as it would appear in pixel art. The 3D pixels are also known as voxels.
Controversy sometimes arises over why some people, particularly Westerners, are called expatriates (expats) while others are termed immigrants.
The painted barrels
The painted barrels
Rifugiato Mappa Del Mondo 3 2012
Rifugiato Mappa del Mondo 3 2012 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 used plastic-weave bags. This work was stitched together by Sibongile Chinjonjo, a Zimbabwean refugee currently living in South Africa
183 x 380 cm
Glenfiddich Residency in Dufftown, Scotland 2010
Having worked with the Chinese-made plastic-weave bags that have become synonymous with refugees around the world, I was interested in investigating the tartan pattern found on these bags. Furthermore I wanted to make connections between this and the famous Scottish tartan.
I commissioned Johnstons of Elgin, a well-known manufacturer of tartan in the area to help me to translate the cheap plastic-weave from the bags into a high-end tartan fabric – a refugee or immigrant tartan.
In the North East of Scotland there is a dialect called Doric, and a common expression is ‘furryboots ye fae?’ meaning ‘whereabouts are you from?’
So to personify the expression, and being a foreigner, I posed in some furry boots, a furry sporran made of seal fur, and a great kilt made from the immigrant tartan fabric in the centre of Dufftown.
I also worked on another project that involved using whisky barrels situated at Glenfiddich’s cask compound. These barrels come from the bourbon industry in America and the makers of sherry in Spain.
I painted 1020 of these barrels to create a large scale installation based on one repeat of the pattern in the bag’s weave. Using each barrel to form one stitch in the weave, I produced a massive version. Visible from an aerial perspective, this map could be seen by Google maps, and possibly by aliens not of this earth.
also see: artthrob video and artthrob interview
Kotoku tew a na mmati adwo 2012
Kotoku tew a, na mmati adwo 2012. Found plastic-weave bag, custom-made tartan fabric
65 x 70 cm
Kotoku tew a na mmati adwo 2012
detail
Ghana Must Go Quilt 1 2011
Ghana Must Go Quilt 1 2011 Found plastic-weave bags
170 x 250 cm
ʻIn Ghana and most of West Africa we call it the “Ghana must go” bag.ʼThis designation resulted from the various expulsions of immigrants that Ghana and Nigeria engaged in between the 1960’s and 1980’s. Many were only able to pack their belongings in such bags before fleeing, expelled with barely hours or days notice. Thus “Ghana must go’ is ironic at best and has mocking overtones at worst. Alternatively in Ghana, and humorously, they are called “Efiewura Sua Me”, literally “help me carry my bag”.
The slave quilt code. This idea is that African American slaves used quilts to communicate information about how to escape to freedom. The idea was introduced and popularized throughout the 1980s. However most quilt scholars and historians consider the “code” to be completely lacking any basis in fact.
Despite this, books such as Hidden in Plain View present the idea as fact. The theory gained publicity after one of the authors Raymond Dobard, Jr. appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. The theory is based on the oral statements of Ozella McDaniel Williams, a quilt vendor in South Carolina.
Dobard believes the first quilt the seamstress would display had a wrench pattern. “It meant gather your tools and get physically and mentally prepared to escape the plantation,” he said. The seamstress would then hang a quilt with a wagon wheel pattern. This pattern told slaves to pack their belongings because they were about to go on a long journey.
Dobard said his favorite pattern was the bear’s paw, a quilt he believes directed slaves to head north over the Appalachian Mountains. “You were supposed to follow the literal footprints of the bear,” Dobard said. “Bears always go to water and berries and other natural food sources.”
The last quilt had a tumbling blocks pattern, which Dobard described as looking like a collection of boxes. “This quilt was only displayed when certain conditions were right. If, for example, there was an Underground Railroad agent in the area,” Dobard said. “It was an indication to pack up and go.”
In 2011 working together with Zimbabwean seamtress Sibongile Chinjonjo, I created a quilt showing the tumbling block or box pattern called Ghana Must Go Quilt 1.
Fact or myth, people agree that the idea of a quilt code is compelling. It is an interesting story with the potential to give back some power to the slaves in an otherwise bleak history. History is generally written by white men, and as these quilts would have been made by black women, we will never know the truth.
Ideas are brought into our everyday lives, much like viruses. They gain an identity and a history, we either coexist or let them extinguish. The word ‘fabricate’ can mean to construct something honestly, or to deliberately deceive.
