Sculptural Alignments

This artwork/installation arose in response to two areas of stimulation whilst artist in residence at Nirox, South Africa. Firstly, my being exposed to paleolithic caves in the ‘Cradle of Humanity’ where humankind made the jump to consciousness and which were on the non-public side of art centre’s land (I spent time at the mouth of these using poetic writing as a means to excavate energy and imagined meanings growing through the grasses). Secondly, the work of a recently formed collective, Unit 58, who were setting up dwellings on the edge of the art centre’s expansive territory and who were committed to new forms of dwelling, sustainable practices and consciousness (I convened a David Bohm Dialogue with its members as a way to facilitate them to think creatively together in the gallery space where my installation would eventually take place and so I could intimately engage with their vision). Conceptually I was working to find a form that would equate Unit 58’s committed experimental presence on the land to that of an expanded sculptural form, in line with a philosophical understanding of art as an extended ‘sense-making apparatus’ which opens up the possibilities of life if we are open to exposing our brains to creative ways of thinking and prepared to unleash radical agency in relationship to what comes up. The term for this artwork as as ‘expanded diagram’ has arisen out of my reflection upon the piece’s evolution. In Deleuzian inspired philosophical thought, the diagram is often cited as the most apt visual mechanism with which to probe philosophical thought through art and has specific registers with the ethical-aesethic production of subjectivity. This piece was exhibited at Nirox’s international winter exhibition, Power of Site (April-August 2019), I was initially invited to make work in association with Unit 58 by one of its emeritus members, Elena Rocci, who showed work in the same room and curated the overall space.