The Segregator - An Alternative Artefact
Medium: Installation with found objects, photographs and video
Sizes: Room Divider H.180cm W.300cm, others various
Year: 2017
China’s great contradiction is to have an economy that is connected to the outside world but a political culture closed off from western values such as freedom of speech and democracy. China is both the world’s newest superpower and its largest authoritarian state, which uses censorship to restrict access to human expression. As a tourist, you go to Tiananmen Square to explore history, but what you find is the sad legacy of a censored past. The name, Forbidden City, comes from the idea that no one could enter or leave the palace without the Emperor’s permission. An oppressive feeling that is still palpable today.
There, I witnessed wealth, growth and power, but also many extremely poor and neglected neighbourhoods. Poverty, inequality, environmental degradation and pollution were in abundance. The detritus of a broken system.