SKARRELBAAN
A solo exhibition by Igshaan Adams On view until 19 March Blank Projects CT blankprojects.com
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n Afrikaans colloquialism in the Kaaps (Cape) dialect, the exhibition title is a phrase that refuses translation. Referring to a particular way of moving through the world with a wary desperation to improve one’s circumstances, to be on the skarrelbaan is to be on the lookout for good fortune; hustling for jobs, money, or food.
Comprising a series of new large-scale weavings and installation, the exhibition expands on the artist’s investigations of ‘desire lines’, those paths walked into the landscape that circumvent or resist spatial planning. In Cape Town, this resistance to the confines of organised space holds a special poignancy; one of the enduring evils of Apartheid is the physical segregation and economic exclusion of people of colour by means of boundaries, highways and veld (open ground). The paths that traverse these spaces describe the journeys of people, led by intuition or necessity, in search of work and community. Working with satellite imagery to create motifs for his tapestries, Adams invites us to witness these collective histories from above. Weaving their stories into the works on show, he transforms commonplace materials such as recycled nylon rope, string, wire and beads into precious objects. Much like the pathways trampled into vinyl flooring tell the personal histories of a domestic space so too do these desire paths, at hundreds of times the scale, record the daily pursuits of individuals and communities.
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