Page 61 - CATALOGUE FLIPBOOK - Interventions in practice

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
ARTIST’S STA TEMENT

The title for this exhibition draws from Anna Tsing’s call Assemblage can produce unthought of and unexpected
to notice, wherein she reminds us of this power to find results, particularly when recycled materials and objects
ways past the anthropocenic ruins we inhabit. Tsing’s are composited, and in their newly constructed forms sug-
world-making argument to embrace a fluid state of reality gest an openness, possibilities of uncertainty, nonlinearity
in shaping a ‘third nature’ is paralleled in the themes that I and as theory suggests, a sense of unity across difference.
explore in an art practice of posthuman possibilities, where The installation of mixed media in Looking Around; Acts
flexible identities in sculptural bodies, portraits and land- of Noticing sees the found object coexisting with the made
scape will develop. The artworks emerge from this practice object, and when it is joined and wrapped, a new surface
that explores aspects of my relationship with the world and skin is produced and a hierarchical logic is collapsed. This
with technology, with the political, ethical and material en- conjuring of material elements imagines an embodiment
tanglements of humanity and a ruined environment and in of our human and non- human entanglements and calls
sensory enquiring daily walks with my dogs. for an ontological shift where, as in this project, landscape,
Theories and practices of materiality are responded to stones and objects, through pareidolia blur the lines be-
in these works and inform how the recycled objects I work tween landscape and portrait.
with are assembled. I recall Jackson Hlungwani telling me
how a piece of wood or stone would speak to him when
he was out on walks looking for material and ideas for his
practice. And that he would listen to the wood he was carv-
ing, and as it spoke to him he would respond. These ways
of thinking and making equally inform my digital media
teaching and the processes that precipitate the assem-
blages I make. The performative action in making these as-
semblages associates with ritual, and often results in what
feels like alchemy, letting the material lead in a condition of
uncertainty. Untitled (Walls that talk, Vlakplaas). [Detail]. 2021.
Found material, obsolete technology and recycled paper pulp.
5820 mm x 2700 mm.
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