The Ground Swallows You.

The Ground Swallows You
Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Dunedin
6–30 April 2016

The Ground Swallows You traces the path of the container ship Josco Suzhou as it carried a cargo of rock phosphate from the disputed territory of Western Sahara to Dunedin in late 2015—a graphic investigation into the geopolitical implications of our economic systems and trade agreements. From that starting point the project takes up New Zealand’s economic reliance on the territory, asking a New Zealand audience to consider the country’s continued participation in Morocco’s occupation and use of Western Sahara’s resources.

Using the symbols of the countries and fertiliser corporations involved as a new visual language, the work points to the convoluted nature of the decision to keep importing this disputed earth, and in doing so makes visible the entanglement of two countries on opposite sides of the world. Alongside a growing and adaptable body of poster works and wall drawings, the project comprises a newsprint publication with contributions from the Peace and Conflict Studies scholar Jacob Mundy—co-author of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution—and the New York Times investigative reporter Ian Urbina, addressing, respectively, the conflict in Western Sahara and the practices of international shipping.