The work looks back to my homeland Kenya. A rotating poster advertising apparatus stands on a square of earth, through which no advertisements run, but rather collages of newspaper articles, press photos, and headlines. “Electric Fence”, “Cash Only”, “No Exit”, “Land not for Sale”, “Authorized Personnel Only” or “Be Ware Of Dogs”. These headlines and slogans give rise to fears, conjectures, and speculations about the problems in a place that, from the European point of view, lies far away. The distance becomes even clearer when the viewer realizes that the poster webs run through the machine so quickly that it is impossible to read or recognize image details. Perhaps a reference to the fact that the viewer cannot grasp the full dimensions from my privileged position, or an allusion to digital consumption of information, which often means that headlines are quickly scanned and images in small mobile phone formats are scanned in a matter of seconds? The newspaper articles deal with grievances that can be traced back to colonialism and still lead to problematic relationships between landowners, land sellers, and their borders with the rest of the population. Birthrights and patriarchal mechanisms come into play. The installation scheme expo lays traces of these complex, historical, and current grievances, it reveals research work and documentation but embeds them in a western classic consumer model. On the bare ground, the poster box appears alone and is left to its own devices. Perhaps she is waiting to be finally stopped, an indirect request for closer examination.

Text courtesy of; Larissa Kikol, Kunst Forum International