Kay Hassan: Borders and Borderlands

S8SPK TS i w o r m m n conrronting " and questioning concepts such om e and homel essness. m i gr anc y and refugees. Hassan questions the politics of borders and orderl ands and thei r effects as m ar ker s arid zones of the familiarity of m em or y and the strangeness of history. Rory Best er Opposite, Top to Bottom: Esiphothini (Shebeen), 1997, mixed media installation, courtesy Walker Art Center. Installation view of Egoli (The Golden City), 1998. Urban Cocktail, 1997, paper construction.courtesy Walker Art Center. is critically underdeveloped and is responsible for excessive travelling times, chronic congestion and laborious waiting times. "People spend a lot of tim e waiting for transport," says Hassan, "and they are forced to becom e familiar with the billboard images they pass every day. I'd love to install my paper constructions on these billboard sites at train st ations and bus stops, so that instead of people having to look at beer ad vertisements they can see an artist's image that speaks to t hem ." That people identify wit h the imagery of billboard posters is one of the reasons that attracted Hassan to the m aterial. For him , "the b i l l board format is ideal for ex hibitions because Sout h Af rica is going through a healing process at the moment. It's critical for people to see these kinds of images and engage in discussion". Importantly, Hassan doesn't see his paper constructions as collage: "The billboard images are already const ruct ed. I tear them up and reconstruct them . I'm trying to go beyond collage. I don't use the existing imagery. The const ructions have nothing to do wit h the original images." But there are always abiding iconographic signs that remind the viewer of the original b i l l board - a section of type from a beer advert, for example - and in this way people are often able to identify the original billboard material that is being used in the const ruct ion. For Hassan, it's important that the viewer recognizes the original material and know where it came from. "I suppose this is part of the seduct ion," he says, "viewers are seduced by the fact that from far away the paper constructions look like paintings, but up close its clear that they're const ruct ions." Hassan's early paper constructions were semiabstract forms but they've grown more figurative of late. He has also stopped drawing or painting over the constructions. The result of his engagement of this process is the generation of a number of huge, or ganic pieces that grapple wit h the everyday realities of post- apartheid Sout h Af rica. For Hassan, First Tim e Vot ers (1995), a paper const ruction acouired recently by the Sm ithsonian Institution, is "a com m em oration of a special time in our lives. I tried to capture the atmosphere of the endless Queues and the excitement of vot ing for the first t im e." Currently Hassan is devoting most of his productive time to the paper constructions. "My installation work is on hold at the m om ent," he says. "I'm using the paper construction work to experiment and reflect. It's the kind of work that's inspiring the large- scale installations I'll be producing in the not too distant future." This turn com es off the back of installations that actually incorporated small- scale paper const ructions . On e of the earliest installations to incorporate his paper co n structions is The Flight, shown at the Newt own Galleries in 1994, the ex hibition "Places of Power" in lohannesburg, and at the Kwangju Jo u r n al of Co n t em p o r ar y Af r i can Ar t Migrant Worker's Quarters, 1997, mixed media installation from "no place(like home)", courtesy Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Biennale in 1995. In a world in which socio- economic and political borders are being entrenched and challenged, Th e Flight is an installation work that en gages the theme of...