CO27: Blue Tears was commissioned for We Out Here 2023, a group exhibition at Hastings Contemporary in Hastings.

In aesthetic and structural terms, the work is intended as an exercise in geometric, material and visual contrasts. However, as ‘CO’ is the chemical description of cobalt and ‘27’ its atomic number, the underlying concept of the work is embedded in the title. The work was created using specific colours and materials to reflect on historical and contemporary predatory capitalist extraction and exploitation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Copper and its byproduct, cobalt are valuable, high-demand materials found extensively in the DRC. Cobalt is used in smart phones, electronic devices and rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles making it key to the West’s hungry drive for green, clean energy. However, cobalt mining, like many other resources extracted on this industrial scale, has catastrophically devastating consequences for the Congolese people and their land.

CO27: Blue Tears - Copper hoops, cobalt pigment, clay, wood, and rubber

Dimensions - 240 x 240 x 120cm