Still: Sen McGlinn. Illegal New Zealand spoil
bagged in four porridge bags.
Still: Sen McGlinn. After two bags of
the New Zealand spoil had been dumped.
photo: Sen McGlinn
photo: Sen McGlinn. Sonja dumps the 3rd bag of spoil.
Since 2023 I had been using spoil (rock, clay rubble) that was dumped into our trees by a neighbour in installations, sculpture and performances.
This is both an act of defiance and a performative transformation.
It is rubble.
It was dumped illegally on our land. It is collected and dried.
It is bagged to be repurposed as an art medium.
It is transported to far away places, where it is dumped.
It is cleaned up.
It is dumped repeatedly. But it is never left where it is dumped.
That is important to me, otherwise I am just repeating the transgression.
We all make mistakes. We all make a mess. It is how we clean up. It is how we fix or attempt to fix a problem, that matters.
In the north of Aotearoa New Zealand this is an ongoing legal and environmental battle to save our forest and wetland because of the volume that transgresses into our trees and water and because Local and Regional Councils continue to allow this transgression to remain.
This is one of my spoil dumping performances during the IBERICA residency at Karstica (200 km east of Madrid) I dumped bags of this spoil from corner to corner of a grid of tiles.
This time I asked four artists to clean up my mess. Each of the artists were raised from the four corners of the world. Kau from Taiwan, Ian from Canada, Veronica from Mexico and Katarina from Slovenia.
