All the works of the ‘bind/ontbind’ Series attempt to collapse the dichotomy inherent in their title… In Afrikaans to ‘bind’ means “to tie up; to fasten; cement; hold; trammel; bind…bound by; commit (to the conditions)…linkage; fixation; weave (patterns)…to connect”. Conversely, the word ‘ontbind’ means to “untie; undo; break up; disband; dissolve; decompose; decay; putrify; disintegrate; analyze; decompound; resolve (forces); dissociate; disconnect; …disintegration; disestablishment; dissolution; …annulment”

The works in this series are all metaphors for the complex interrelationship between these two seemingly oppositional forces – everything we are and we everything we know is subject to their constant re-vision, re-articulation and re-formation. Albert Einstein said that the only constant force in the universe is change. However, I would add that, change is in itself chaotic. It has no substance and cannot be known.

Thus everything is subject to change including our (re) interpretations of its meaning. In fact, there is the paradox: as with all things, we can only speak about it in metaphors – in order to render it knowledgeable we have to position words/concepts ‘in its stead’, to ‘represent’ it i.e. ‘bind/ontbind’. For me, things are not either in the process of ‘binding’ or of ‘un-binding’ alone, they are simultaneously doing both.

“We may attempt to contain this ongoing process of transformation (or of expansion and retraction) within complex systems of knowledge - as various historical epistemologies, ontologies and cosmologies have attempted to do before - but we cannot ever hope to contain it. If this is the ‘grand narrative’ that defines human existence, it is not grand at all: neither its cause nor its effect will ever be ours for the taking. As an artist, all I wish to do is to draw attention to this fact”.

(Interview with the artist/curator Alex Zika. This interview was printed in the catalogue for the show “Agora” held in London, 2004).