Recycled Art...Twigs Clipping and Wood Trimming

Littered with numerous spheres that appear to be of mixture of coated beeswax newsprint or just horse dung


Akuzuru, the artist may have wondered to herself, what happen at her opening? Only a handful of people attended her exhibition at the InterAmericas space, CCA7, Caribbean Contemporary Arts, Trinidad, West Indies.

At the heart of this show is the work, Tapia/ Flood II. The gallery is filled with hangings, hemmed loops and droppings. Akuzuru's knack for fashion shows her skill in assembling these garments and the artist uses burlap bags as the focal point of the installation. These burlap peices are suspended from rope knotted from the four corners of the room.

This exhibition shows that contemporary art can be produced from natural materials such as the husk from the coconut tree. The raw fiber has an appealing texture to it and Akuzuru stitches the material together as loops and disks. A second installation is located at the Botanical Gardens in Port of Spain.

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Walk into the InterAmericas space and you will see an installation work by the artist Akuzuru that is both unexpected and yet very natural in the setting. The wooden floor and the use of dried materials of similar colour and textures used in sculptural ways lend itself to that sense of naturalness. On closer inspection the work also takes on a level of design construction and even fabric design. The organic forms that she carefully pads and stitches and ribs together suggests an emotional sensitivity to not only the materials used, but to the idea of sculptural possibilities that she has chosen to imbue with such meaning as to beg the question, is this not precious?

Akuzuru is not the only artist working with nature. However she is the only one engaging the question outfits usage in this way. Many may come into the space and see the work only at face value. Some may dismiss it as an artists whimsy. However if one allows themselves to look a bit deeper, one can begin to see a bit of the story of creation in her work, or of the earliest tribes as they struggled to survive. I believe that the dismissal of such installation works by the public occurs for more reasons than not understanding what the work is. At heart we all understand natures purpose and for many of us the thought of it in a serious way really impacts negatively on our consumerist will and desires. Akuzuru reminds us with this work of the very pressing fact that we must remember always that we are but visitors on this great mother earth and we must honor her. - Adele