WEBVTT

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[ atmospheric electronic music ]

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[ EL ANATSUI ]
This is a group photograph.

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And in a group photograph,

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you are thinking about kinship,
you know.

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Kinship,
it's a particular group.

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And then they happen to be
close together.

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Originally,
they were spread wide apart.

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You know,
so what I've tried to do is,

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to bring them together
so that they are a group.

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I come from a family
of very many people,

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about 32 siblings,

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and– and probably
this is a reflection of that.

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I was born in Ghana.

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My mom died
when I was toddler,

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pretty young,
about two or three.

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And so I had to live
with my maternal uncle,

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you know, a reverend.

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And we lived in a mission house
off the presbyterian school.

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My life revolved
only around a mission house

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and the church,

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school, church, you know.

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And I remember that as a kid,
pre-kindergarten,

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I was intrigued by writings
on the doors of offices,

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you know, or even classrooms,

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you know, that I saw around me.

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And I used to sit down
and try to

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emulate, you know,
those writings.

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I didn't know what they meant,
but, uh–

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and I remember
that the letter "G"

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Was more intriguing to me
than all others– all of–

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well, I don't know why.

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Maybe because it has
so many appendages or–

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it's not like "C" or the others.

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It's a "C"
with something else on it.

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You know,
it was intriguing to me.

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I went to art school in Ghana,

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which was an offshoot

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of the Goldsmiths art school
in London.

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At the time I went
to university,

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I didn't know about anybody
who was living as an artist.

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You know,
you knew about art teachers.

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I met art teachers
in the secondary school.

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but there were more teachers
than artists, you know.

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And then I was wondering
how one was going to be

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an artist
living purely on art.

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We knew about doctors.
We knew about lawyers.

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I constantly kept thinking,

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"What precisely do you do
as an artist?"

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I think that has helped
focus me a lot, you know,

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At least to concentrate
on the practice of art

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and see what I can
get out of it.

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As a matter of principle,

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I do not provide
installation instructions

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for my works.

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There's no one particular way

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that these are
supposed to be installed.

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- So to the left
a little bit.

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Right there.

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All right, spear away.

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[ EL ANATSUI ] Since they are so free
and so loose and so flexible,

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It would be difficult
to have a specific format

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for any one of them at anytime.

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- I don't have any other space
that I can hit.

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- Amanda?
- Yeah?

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- Okay if we start
snipping the ties off?

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- I think it is, yeah.

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- Okay. Yeah.
Start snipping those ties.

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When they lift that bar out,

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you're gonna need to lift up
the work, yeah.

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- We're good.
Lift up the bar.

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[tool whirring]

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[ EL ANATSUI ] "Stressed World" is the title
that I give my current work.

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- Yeah, I want to create some...

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some crazy here.
- Yeah.

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- Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay.

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[ EL ANATSUI ] There are so many conflicts
going on in the world right now,

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Man-made conflicts,
natural conflicts:

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earthquakes, tsunamis, wars.

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I'm not sure about all these–

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leave you in a state of
kind of siege.

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Yeah, your mind
is in a state of siege.

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- I think it's okay.

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- It's nice.
[metal clinking]

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- Be careful of your wrists, man.

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- The media I've worked with
so far have been

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metal, ceramic,
and wood in different forms.

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Working with strips of wood,

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I changed my approach
a little bit,

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You know, by working not with
strips of wood that's processed,

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but then wood
which has been used by humans...

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and then transform
it into something

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that you contemplate,

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not something you use.

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I like the drape of that.

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Okay, Sally, I want some
relaxation in some places,

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and, yeah.

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- It's different every time.

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- Yeah, every time
it's different.

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That's the whole idea.

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Supposed to change
with every venue

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and every space.

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[ EL ANATSUI ] The ceramic pieces belong
to a series that I did.

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It was called broken pots.

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In most parts of Africa,
when a pot is broken,

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it's not the end of its life.

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This idea of regeneration,

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you know,
giving form to new life,

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bringing about new hope,
you know.

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And I did these pieces
at the time that also–

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already in Nigeria.

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And the economy of Ghana
was really at its lowest point.

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You know, and I thought that
that was my own way

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of affirming something positive,

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destruction as a prerequisite
for new ideas or for new growth.

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When I started working
with the bottle caps,

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I was purely doing sculpture.

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and somehow, inadvertently,

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the color scheme
of the bottle caps

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happened to replicate that of
a very popular fabric in Ghana,

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The kente cloth.

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Colors of kente cloth
are traditionally

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the reds, the blacks,
the yellows.

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That created problems,

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because when people start
looking at it as textiles,

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the tendency is for them to stop

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looking for any meaning
beyond that.

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What are bottle caps?
Liquor.

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How did liquor
come into my culture?

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And what does it mean?

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Three continents
has something to do with

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the initial ideas that I had
about bottle caps.

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When the European traders came
to Africa for the first time,

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they brought items
to trade with,

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things like drink,

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because, eventually,

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drinks were exchanged for slaves
who were brought to America

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to grow more cotton
and sugarcane

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to make more drink
and then ship to Europe.

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So the idea of three continents,
you know,

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and how drink was a link factor
between the three.

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When I started working
with these bottle caps,

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I thought it was gonna be
a very short run.

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Then as time went on,

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I saw that the possibilities
are just endless.

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Initially, I wasn't
concerned with color.

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Now I'm concerned with color
like a painter.

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Even the modes of display,
they are beginning to expand.

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They happen to be displayed
predominantly on the wall.

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[laughs]

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But it could be on anything.

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It could be on the floor.

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I've showed a couple of them
on hedges, you know, on plants.

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You know,
the concerns of a sculptor

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and the concerns of a painter

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are inherent
in each of the works that I do.

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I went to Nigeria
because I had an appointment

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to teach in the university.

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I've lived in Nigeria
about 36 years now.

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My assistants are young men

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from around the vicinity
of the studio.

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Basically, these are people
who just finished high school

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and awaiting
entry into university.

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It takes quite some time

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for people to pass
the university entrance exam.

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And so while they are waiting
and preparing for that day,

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find time to help me
in the studio

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and earn some– a living.

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Probably because I pay so well

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that a lot of them do come
to ask whether they could help.

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Anybody I bring in has to
undergo some basic training

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on how to stitch
the pieces together,

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some basic skills.

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The whole process
and end product

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all have to do with freedom,
flexibility, you know.

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so right from the instructions
they, you know–

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you leave a lot of room
for people to play around.

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So the resulting work tends
to have that flexibility in it.

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Basically, I work in this way
that–

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where I pick a medium
or a process,

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and I work with it
for a long period, years.

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And it has to take something
more powerful or more demanding

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to really take me away from it.

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At the back of my mind,

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I'm seriously looking out
for anything

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that can come and displace this.

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[laughs]

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But it would take something
really strong to do that,

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because I find that each day

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I go into handle
these bottle caps,

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they keep generating
fresh ideas.

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I lived with my maternal uncle
in a different town

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from where my father

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and the rest of my brothers
and sisters lived.

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And so I had
very little exposure

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to the textiles tradition
that was very strong with them.

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And in art school,

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we were introduced
to all the areas of art.

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And the one that least
attracted me was textiles.

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You know?
[laughs]

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But then– I find it intriguing
that what I do now is very much

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aligned to– like me trying
to get away from textiles,

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but textiles is following--
[laughs]

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following me.

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I don't know.

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I think the idea of recycle,
you know,

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I've always kicked against it.

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Recycling has to do
with the industrial process,

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And that's not what I do.

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I don't, for instance,
retain the bottle caps

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back as bottle caps.

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Yeah, you know, a new life.

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And make them not objects
that do something utilitarian,

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but objects of contemplation.

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[metal clinking]

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- Here we go.
Come around here like this.

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Go like that.

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Okay, it's a very long–
[laughs]

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It's a very long route.

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Okay, so let's start from here.

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Actually, the river
should be emptying out.

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and then the source should be–
- Coming out--

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- In the middle of, yeah.

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So this one's come.

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This is called Digital River.

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And it's composed of digits,
you know.

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And so it compels one to always
try to play around with it.

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- This way.

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It should begin to swing back...
Yeah.

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So that it would end
maybe somewhere here.

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The rivers flow.
They do change their course.

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And you know,
they cut out oxbow lakes.

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And all kinds of things and–

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you know, I think my work has
principally been about change,

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You know,
and nonfixity of things.

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You know,
the fact that things are there,

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and they have to grow old
and change

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and do all kinds of things,
you know.

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It's not because I'm old now.

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[laughs]