Bagged Baggage

The installation "Bagged Baggage" consists of a single wardrobe and suitcase plastered with cement. Inside the wardrobe are clothes: a jacket, shirt, pair of trousers, ties, a belt and a bag – all “ preserved “ by layers of old cement bags, thus becoming a metaphorical monument to “ labor”. Physical labor is transformed into a poetic moment.

On the small screen of the black and white TV monitor an image associated with the “ old South Africa “ ( app. 1960) is visible, that of workers busy digging a ditch, singing rhythmically and lifting their pickaxes in unison. The political system conjured up by the image is part of the “ baggage” of the past, but the image and the repetitive movement and sound may suggest a moment of reflection – the cement cupboard and clothes become symbolic of our own labor and a monument to the ordinary and everyday reality.