Canicula
Cement packets, cotton
1500 x 2750 mm
2018
Private collection
An ongoing series of works, featuring found cement packet paper sewn into large-scale textiles.
The process of making these labour-intensive works sees the artist cutting out the screen-printed colour paper from found cement packets, washing and ironing these paper fragments and sewing them into wall-mounted textiles redolent of hand-made sails. Each work can use more than 200 individual cement packets to create.
The use of the cement packets function as material metaphors of industrial progress, GDP (gross domestic product) growth-targeted infrastructural development projects; capital flight and issues surrounding FDI (foreign direct investment) within the growing China-Africa relationship particularly in crude oil upstream and diamond-rich contexts such as Angola, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
Tontine series
Untitled (Sloop)
Cement packets, cotton
3000 x 2400 mm
2018
Detail: Untitled (Sloop)
Cement packets, cotton
3000 x 2400 mm
2018
Untitled (Fujian)
Cement packets, cotton, bamboo, cast iron, bone
5400 x 2550 x 190 mm
2018
Sirius and the spider
Cement packets, cotton
2400 x 2640 mm
2019
Originally devised in western Europe in the 17th century, a ‘tontine’ is an investment plan for raising capital. As a financial instrument, a tontine combines features both a group annuity and a lottery. Subscribers pay agreed sums into the fund, and thereafter receive an annuity. As subscribers die, their shares devolve to the other participants, and so the value of each annuity increases. On the death of the last member, the scheme is wound up.
In developing countries, the meaning of the term tontine has broadened to encompass a wider range of semi-formal group savings and microcredit schemes. The crucial difference between these and tontines in the traditional sense is that benefits do not depend on the deaths of other members.
Untitled (Mizzen)
Cement packets, cotton
2800 x 2500 mm
2018
Untitled (Kwanza)
Cement packets, cotton, found objects, twine, bamboo
2200 x 2300 x 120 mm
2016
Heirloom
Cement packets, bamboo, cotton
4500 x 2400 x 100 mm
2016