Land Sale

About

Landsale will auction off 12 lots of the “Territory Formerly Known as ‘the Great Britain’”, “Diamond Mines” (Western Cape, South Africa), and “Asbestos Mine” (Havelock mine, Swaziland). 

These paintings have been abstracted from various source maps, tracing the lines of ownership from Empire-based geological surveys, to the haunting shadow of a referendum, towards the unflinching google satellite images of the pock-marked, empty diamond mine craters.

Each map contains a complicated common memory of the land we think we know, and with that, the common amnesia of the land we choose not to know. The collection of works seeks to extend the boundaries of this island towards distant territories and coasts often forgotten.

The relationships between shaping these mutual territories are old and initiated a culture of land legitimising invasion we have become accustomed to. Land Sale seeks to upend the legacy of nation-building by inviting anyone with money to bid on land, presenting them with the ‘right to invade’. Your ‘right to buy’! 

Land Sale is a solo exhibition by Ava Grauls, a South African / Belgian contemporary artist and performer based in London. Ava has previously been awarded the David Mitchie RSA Travel award and is currently completing her final year at the Royal College of Art, London.  She experienced the end of Apartheid and the first democratic election in Johannesburg in 1994 before moving to London in 1998. Her work focuses closely on her experiences through these multiple migrations, questioning the legitimacy of land ownership, different forms of invasion, and nation building.
 

Phoenix Cinema - 52 High Road - East Finchley - London 

 (East Finchley Station - Northern Line - High Barnet Branch) 

Opens 3 March 2023 till 30 March 2023 - daily 12pm to 9pm 

Private view 2 March 2023

www.avagrauls.com/landsale - avagrauls@gmail.com