30_04_2010_Part 2

Artist Interview:

Later in the same day, after the rest of the group had left the island,  Nisa, Dougal and I (with a videographer Alec) stayed behind to conduct an artist interview with Kadar Attia, about his work Kasbah.  This magnificent work, features rooftops the artist has collected from numerous shantytowns around the world.  With them, he has recreated the rooftops of these impoverished communities (like the favellas one might see in poorer parts of South America), but in an interesting inversion, has lowered them down to the ground.  He invites 1^st World visitors, to literally participate in the systems of economic disparity that exist our global world, and walk on the 3^rd World.  The work inspires consideration about many socio-political issues, things like, these countries remain oppressed because richer countries depend on their poverty for their prosperity.  In this work, Attia has installed 350 square metres of rooftop for visitors to traipse over and make such considerations.  The work in moving and interactive and as the artist calls it a “contemporary microcosm of reality”.