Colonies

                                                   (in the thickness of the walls)

2008

A colony is a country ruled by another country; a group of people of the same nationality or ethnic group, doing the same work, or living in the same circumstances, who reside together or near one another.  It is also a group of animals, insects, or organisms of the same kind that are living together and dependent on each other, or a group of plants growing in the same place… A colony is also a localized mass or growth of organisms, for example, bacteria, in or on a nutrient medium, and it is also the area, for example, in a city, where a group of people of the same or similar ethnicity or interests or jobs lives…  Looking at these definitions we can see a shift of power and an apparent gradual threat in this word’s definition. Over the course of the years, as immigration becomes an increasingly sensitive issue, I keep coming back to this word’s definitions. 

I once held a passport that was undesirable and was told, point blank, that people like me grew like mould in the thickness of the walls, settled in hidden places, multiplied like pest and lived on discards. Ever since, I have wanted to make a visual expression of this insult.

Whether it is by force or by choice, people migrate to find better and safer living conditions, but often end up permanently adopting a lifestyle once thought to be temporary. Most are expected to serve; to take on undesirable jobs, fall in the cracks and remain invisible. They are to live within the city’s obscure fabric, as if in a play that gives unimpeded motion to the machine, and are to come out of their hidden places only when needed again. Bearing all this in mind I wanted to work with the visible and the invisible and to express these illusions and disillusions.