(from the insert) In an effort to reassemble things past this book shapes and morphs through color, cut-ups and encounters. Two books, Legislation and Race Relations from the South African Institute of Race Relations (1971) and Historia. A Guiné e as ilhas de Cabo Verde, PAIGC (1974), Afrontamento eds. have been rearranged, distorted, rebound, overlayed with photographs made by Portuguese soldiers during the War of Liberation (or Overseas War), magazines, and photographs from my archive made in Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. Documents of racist ideology are confronted through direct interaction and the resurfacing of words, metaphors and images of struggles that sought new worlds beyond the limits known then.
The use of non-archival materials like acidic papers and tapes will hopefully continue to activate the organic and chemical processes that erode the logic of photographs as “History”. Through tactility and color pigments I physically invoke the degradation of images by catalyzing their deterioration.
(...) Think of this book as an antiarchive.
Of Things Past
Book object, 1/1; 21x 12.5 cms.
Original book pages, magazine cut ups, appropriated photographs, acrylic pigments and inks, tape, rebound)
2021
