2019 - ongoing, black 50cm square steel profiles, plastic caps. Each object 150cm x 150cm x 150cm.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one… In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
Neil Postman
Such objects usually separate and secure otherwise open spaces by clearly dividing them into specific areas. Here they are more ambivalent. Expanding and contracting according to their location and context, confusing the perimeter itself and undermining any certainty you may have had as to which side of it you stand.
The barrier’s individual elements might form a horde or a thicket, but they are as much institutional as they are martial. The black powder-coated satin finish, plastic end-plugs and bolt-caps reminiscent of office furniture. As units and as a group they constitute a collision of two quite different worlds, with very different takes on oppression.