JANINE EGGERT & ASH MONIZ
Glossary of Rotating Actions
03.08.19 – 15.09.19
“The attempt to liberate people from the dead hand of bureaucracy has led to the rise of a new and increasingly controlling system of management driven by targets and numbers.”
Adam Curtis in The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom
KELDER is pleased to host Glossary of Rotating Actions, a collaborative project by Janine Eggert and Ash Moniz that explores the politics and aesthetics of maritime trade within a larger system of global logistics. This project forms part of a series of collaborative acts where KELDER invites other cultural practitioners to realise a project. Our second guest curator is Berlin based, Carola Uehlken who searches for possibilities to understand global relationships through her curatorial practice.
The cargo ship is a contentious vessel with its birth in European colonial expansion and current position harbouring geopolitical tensions. This delicate legacy, and the agents bound up in this trajectory, are explored by Eggert and Moniz in contrasting ways through their respective practices. Both artists follow different threads that stem from the abstraction of the cargo ship and in doing so confront us with that which is rarely witnessed but heavily present through its absence: the protection of global trade.
Within the history of cargo ships, the security of goods has taken many forms, requiring solutions of technological nature as well as traditional policing. In 1798, theft onboard ships on the Thames led to the formation of the Maritime Police. Using this as a starting point, Ash Moniz explores the Wapping Coal Riots which took place that same year. Through their multimedia installation we are introduced to the character of Elizabeth Forester and her account of a fatal shooting during the riot, prompting us to question the value of evidence and testimony. Using this historic account, Moniz investigates the value of identification: the importance of creating a visual identity of a criminal to be used not only to convict of past crimes, but also to prevent future criminal activity. This use of composite photography to generate images of imagined criminals are hugely problematic and the ramifications of this failed early technology are felt today.
Janine Eggert also investigates technologies used to protect goods and returns to the contemporary cargo ship and the use of ‘rat racks’. These objects have been developed to protect the goods from damage caused by vermin onboard ships and their aesthetic and formal qualities belie their utilitarian purpose. Informed by the artist’s observations during her time onboard these vessels, Eggert presents us with sculptural works that explore the tension between ornamentation and the repetition of mass-manufactured industrial structures. Building on her research into how natural geometric forms and layouts inform industrial manufacturing, Eggert plays with these qualities and creates sculptural objects which in its origin are elements of a larger industrial environment.
This project forms part of a series of collaborative acts where KELDER will work with artists, curators, educators, institutions and writers to take the role of guest curator in order to realise a collaborative project.
Our second guest curator is the Berlin based curator, Carola Uehlken who searches for possibilities to understand global relationships. She also directs the project space BABEL in Berlin, Wilmersdorf together with Arthur Debert.
Our second guest curator is the Berlin based curator, Carola Uehlken who searches for possibilities to understand global relationships. She also directs the project space BABEL in Berlin, Wilmersdorf together with Arthur Debert.
About
Janine Eggert is an artist who creates sculptures and installations, involving a wide range of industrial materials and industrial techniques. Her recent projects engage with the ornamental qualities of industrially manufactured goods and the technological sublime. Her work has been presented in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kunstverein Wilhelmshöhe Ettlingen and Kunsthaus Hamburg and included large-scale, site-specific installations, sculptures, videos and screen prints. In addition to her work as a visual artist, she founded the exhibition space Lady Fitness in 2013 and curated et al sculpture focused and site-specific exhibitions such as "Arcadia Unbound" at the Funkhaus Berlin in 2015.
Ash Moniz is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice includes performance, video and installation. They hold a BFA from OCAD University (Toronto, 2014), a scholarship from Nanjing University of the Arts (2013) and participated in the Mass Alexandria Independent Studio Program (Alexandria, 2016). They are the recipient of awards from the Ontario Arts Council, and Mophradat, among others. Moniz has presented at Silent-Green Kulturquartier (Berlin), State of Concepts (Athens), and is currently a fellow at the Cairo Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences, leading a course on performativity.
Janine Eggert is an artist who creates sculptures and installations, involving a wide range of industrial materials and industrial techniques. Her recent projects engage with the ornamental qualities of industrially manufactured goods and the technological sublime. Her work has been presented in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kunstverein Wilhelmshöhe Ettlingen and Kunsthaus Hamburg and included large-scale, site-specific installations, sculptures, videos and screen prints. In addition to her work as a visual artist, she founded the exhibition space Lady Fitness in 2013 and curated et al sculpture focused and site-specific exhibitions such as "Arcadia Unbound" at the Funkhaus Berlin in 2015.
Ash Moniz is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice includes performance, video and installation. They hold a BFA from OCAD University (Toronto, 2014), a scholarship from Nanjing University of the Arts (2013) and participated in the Mass Alexandria Independent Studio Program (Alexandria, 2016). They are the recipient of awards from the Ontario Arts Council, and Mophradat, among others. Moniz has presented at Silent-Green Kulturquartier (Berlin), State of Concepts (Athens), and is currently a fellow at the Cairo Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences, leading a course on performativity.