Memory Biwa

Works

Ozerandu

Date
2024

Material
Sound installation / Mixed Media

Description

One of the recurring stories of the mining process in the Northern Cape region where iron ore is mined is that the dust winds from the mines paint the towns red. I draw similarities with the red-lit sky from the Völklingen Ironworks, shown in a photograph from July 1966 exhibited on site. Dust clouds raining red between the earth and sky, and in relation to how sound envelops and inhabits space, symbolizes the all-consuming process and aftereffects of mining, on people, and on the surrounding environment. The title of the work, “Ozerandu,” in Otjiherero is the word for the color red. The title also refers to “Otjize,” a mixture of butterfat and ochre used by the Himba people to protect themselves from the harsh desert climate; to the iron-rich red ochre mines and women miners in northwestern Namibia; to ochre wrapped on bodies; and to the red/brown dust remains of the blast furnace underworld. It evokes the intimacies between people and land, as otjize and red dust from rocks/stones containing iron ore covers bodies and all entities it comes into contact with.

My focus is on the ways people interact with materiality to enact significance in space. In other words, how space becomes a site of memory through the forms, methods, and strategies used to inhabit it.

Memory Biwa