Fabrications 2016










This project constructs a fictional history of Palestine.

Describing a dazzling blue land ravaged by colonisation, it presents an impossible geological phenomenon: vast quarries of indigo. Through a series of absurd distortions, the work is a critical engagement with the construction of history - and the uncertainty that pervades Palestine’s borders and geopolitical status.

To produce this work, I collaborated with a denim producer based in Nablus, Palestine. During the Second Intifada, this factory had operated under the immediate sightline of an Israeli tank; its workers labouring under the immediate threat of obliteration. By fabricating images, clothes and historical accounts, this work examines the distortions that are woven through the production of history - and the trauma that this effects on the body.





Media: Sculpture, photography, text, HD video (6 mins)
Commissioner : Delfina Foundation / British Council
Exhibitions : ICA (London), EVA Biennale (Limerick), Blackwood Gallery (Toronto), Division of Labour (Salford)
Press : Artforum (critic’s pick), Frieze



Mark