Exhibitions   /

SCATTERED BELONGINGS

SCATTERED BELONGINGS

In a new collection of works entitled ‘Scattered Belongings’ Natasha draws inspiration from a frequently portrayed sub-Saharan African market scene that predominantly trades in secondhand imports.

 

A landscape made up of make-shift side of the road and walkway structures made of disused and discarded waste such as plastics, iron, cardboard, sacking, cloth, board and anything else that may serve the purpose to enclose, protect, house and facilitate a trade business that provides opportunity to groups marginalized and for them to have a sustainable livelihood. 

 

Bales and bundles of secondhand clothing, shoes etc. in Zambia known as ‘Salula’ arrived from the western corners are traded from these basic spontaneous street-side structures locally known as Ntemba’s. 

Studies of these spaces has provided rich visual material that has led Natasha to explore in some of her pieces in terms of their physical presence, texture, shape, line and abstracted detail.  These studies have allowed her to draw parallels to ways in which rubbish is transformed into resource and what lines of connection there are between this second hand market setting and the invisible marks and lines made between people and their comings and goings and between the poor and the elites within economies.

 

These Ntemba structures have no permanence, no solid foundation and like the wares that are shifted, traded, exchanged from within, they seem to be floating themselves, shifting, changing face, and affected by time under the beating sun and rain. Integral and throw away in the same moment.”

 

THE ARTWORK

The collection as a whole has elements of having been put together in segments, the same way these Ntembas are constructed or as the clothing is grouped and bundled. The process of building onto, stitching together, layering, covering, discarding and retrieving as well as the reuse and recycling of materials is present in most of the work.

Title ‘Salaula Skyline’ Textile and Mixed Media

This body of work has been built on conceptual narratives that have developed during the many months of working around the subject area resulting in a body of work where these narratives are visually realized and intrinsically interwoven into the collection as a whole.  

Transferred photography images, text, gestural drawing, lines and spontaneous mark making can be seen on top painted or layered backgrounds.  Hand drawn text and collaged drawn and painted elements result in ‘chaotic’ compositions that invite the viewer to explore the paintings from their edges rather than from the center out.

Title ‘’My Market’ Textile and Mixed Media

‘‘As I found myself searching to uncover some kind of treasure from bundles of other peoples discarded belongings, in the same way I would like the viewer to uncover, unearth parts of the paintings that may connect with them’. 

‘Shaded ragged squares of canvas, rusted corrugated battered sheets, cardboard and wooden uprights decorated with nailed bottle tops serving the purpose of washers.  Brown earth and light and sky escaping through the shredded plastic ceilings.’

CONNECTION

As a child Natasha remembers the anticipation of sorting through piles of secondhand clothes in hopes of finding something to cherish and give a second life to.  On school holidays visits to ‘The Market’ with her sisters to buy clothes would something they would look forward to and where the majority of their wardrobe would come from.  Natasha’s interest in value found in something used and discarded has probably stemmed from that time.  This as an underlying concept and her appreciation of surface textures that appear to have been eroded by time and hold aesthetical appeal can be seen in this collection of work. 

 In ‘Scattered Belongings’ Natasha draws from her experience and has new questions about how we deal with waste, sustainability of livelihoods by recycling and the woman’s role.  Whether or not the secondhand trades alleviates poverty and helps create identities or whether the goods are just morally charged gifts encouraging a consumption culture and benefitting those higher up the vertical hierarchy.

‘Notions of gift versus commodity, waste versus value, identity versus sense of belonging are all at play during the process of creating these artworks.

 

INSTALLATION PIECES

‘Deconstructed Ntemba’ is a hanging installation comprising of 88 wood blocks that have been covered/clad in materials commonly used to make the stalls, shelters, Ntembo’s.  Black plastic, sacking cloth, cardboard, rusted roofing sheets, wood etc.  Most of the materials used have actually been collected from disused shelters or from waste piles.

‘Bundles’ comprises of a few hundred individually hand stitched balls, ‘bundles’ strung together and suspended from the ceiling in divided into to groups and piled.  This piece represents the second hand clothing market and uses completely recycled textiles and plastics. 

The bundles were commissioned by Natasha to a small group of farm worker ladies who benefitted in a small way by being part of this exhibition and helped Natasha to visually linking ideas of individuality and the interconnection of people from different groups of society.  Found waste material as well as personal discarded clothes and textiles were used, which add a personalized human aspect.  

Conceptually questions of origin and interconnection are interwoven into both piece, which serves a purpose to help strengthen and visualize the core concepts in the rest of the body of work seen in ‘Scattered Belongings’.   

 

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