Robert Slingsby

Listings(s)

'Money and God in his pocket'

It was American conceptual artist Barbara Kruger who in the 1980s used the phrase 'Money and God in his pocket' in a poster protesting nuclear armament. Intended to convey the paradox of upholding conflicting values, Slingsby uses it here to focus on the impact of ideological conflict on the environment and vulnerable peoples. While 'Money and God in his pocket' may be the cause of the conflict, the outcome of this conflict has resulted in planet earth entering a new era or more correctly, a new epoch. The name of this epoch is the Anthropocene.

The Anthropocene is a new term, used to define the period during which man’s activities have made significant enough impact on the earth's ecosystems to herald a new epoch. Historically these are heralded by geological changes; natural disasters such as meteorites, volcanoes and earth quakes. While scientists agree that we are in a new epoch, the question of when it began is still being deliberated. In this context, Slingsby sees his new work as a form of activism; a calling to others to open their eyes, to treasure the local natural environment, and take action to prevent further obliteration: ’We lose the very essence of what makes us African, when we diminish the diversity of our natural abundance. When we lose the rhino we lose something which is so deeply engrained into our psyche, a mooring post which defines our 'African-ness'.

Through his current series of drawings he bears witness to man’s persistent and ruthless exploitation of the planet, showing the consequences of mans greed, often in the form of diminishing habitats. In particular his work considers the impact on the Richtersveld and its people, an area with which he has had a longstanding relationship.

24 October 2012 - 28 November 2012

'Crossing the Line'

'A trip to the Katanga province of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) can only described in the most neutral of adjectives, as "harrowing". Driving through this fecund land, visibly bursting with natural wealth, I witnessed the mutilation of its body, its lungs clogged, heart gouged out, carved up and consumed. I saw its arteries severed and its life-blood seeping through a desiccated skin.

'Crossing the Line', documents a similar travesty afflicting the region. Robert Slingsby’s locus might be different to that of the DRC: the remote Omo River in southwest Ethiopia. But his overarching narrative is of the wholesale theft of Africa by rapacious multinationals aided and abetted by governments profiting from, to quote Slingsby, "these parasites in paradise."

Despite the end of colonialism, the interplay between economic, political, and social forces continue to drive European, American, African and Asian interests to establish a stake in the resource-rich region. This frenzied scramble for Africa has succeeded through the declaration of exclusive commercial claims to particular territories, including exclusive control of waterways and commercial routes throughout the continent. In an insidious form of neo-imperialism, multinationals have imposed excessive tariffs, committed tax evasion and perpetrated fraudulent practices that rob indigenous communities of the essential fruits of land and labour.

In 'Crossing the Line', Slingsby not only pays homage to the tribes under threat. Through a multimedia installation that audio-visually documents the brief sojourn of Slingsby and his wife Janis amongst the Mursi and Karo, he fires a visceral salvo at the consequences of policies championing progress at all costs. And it is Slingsby's portraits that provide the most tragic portents of catastrophe. They are images of dignity, reflecting nothing of the upheaval that will afflict their lives. But whether in Ethiopia, or elsewhere in Africa, or indeed wherever indigenous communities dwell; without effective intervention they face a future of poverty and dispossession through ancestral lands falling into foreign hands.'

Text by Hazel Friedman: Into Foreign Hands

06 February 2014 - 13 March 2014