This exhibtion is titled Fever Sleep and consists of a set of limited edition prints which feature the traditional African headsets as its starting point. Traditionally, headrests are believed to prvide individuals who sleep on them with a bridge to the \\\’dream world\\\’ of spirits and tribal ancestors. As indigenous African tribes cane into contact with European settlers through the process of colonisation, headrests and other artifacts came to reflect and integrate foreign colonial influence and materials. These materials usually consisted of buttons, beads, nails, bullets and other mundane objects.
Campbell has incorporated these, and other novel materials in his work, culminating in a series of modern headrest sculptures. These headrests are unique in that they do not offer the usual smooth, inviting surface on which to rest the head – he has created quite the opposite: headrests which offer the user an uncomfortable slumber; a “fever sleep”. These fever sleep headrests may be interpreted as a statement concerning the uneasy historical legacy that exists between the coloniser and the colonised.
Campbell has produced limited edition prints of the various sculptures he has created, as the final stage in his artistic process.
Kurt Campbell Andrew Lamprecht Svea Josephy Charl Bezuidenhout Nasan Pather sleep headrest unconscious colonialism imperialism tourism fiction collection printmaking sculpture Africa
Artist: Kurt Campbell
Essays: Andrew Lamprecht, Svea Josephy, Nathan Pather, Charl Bezuidenhout
Gallery: Worldart, Cape Town
Dates: 2 May 2007 – 31 May 2007
Website: https://www.kurt-campbell.com/feversleep
Pages: 16
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