Matthew Galloway: As Time Goes By: roomsheet

In The Ground Swallows You Matthew Galloway investigates the geopolitical implications of using imported fertiliser in our agricultural industry. Part I of this project traced the path of the container ship Josco Suzhou, carrying Rock Phosphate from the occupied territory of Western Sahara in North Africa to Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand in late 2015. Galloway has subsequently developed the project to raise questions about our continued trade relationship with this disputed territory­, despite the human rights issues involved. Adapting and deploying the symbols of the fertiliser corporations and countries involved as a new visual language on these flags, As Time Goes By highlights our ongoing participation in Morocco’s illegal occupation and use of Western Sahara’s resources. Here the flags are accompanied by a free newspaper providing information on the background and context for this long-running conflict. As a whole the project sets out to reveal the factors behind the continued import of this resource, and an awareness of the economic and political connection between these two countries on opposite sides of the world.

The Ground Swallows You (Part II) publication includes contributions from Sahrawi Activist Elbarra Embarek Jelali, ARTifariti 2016 Curator Jose Iglesias Ga-Arenal, and Western Sahara Resource Watch representative Erik Hagan. These flags were first shown in Western Sahara as part of ARTifariti International Art an Human Rights Meeting, held in Sahrawi in late 2016.

Matthew Galloway works mainly through collaborations, research projects and publications. He is increasingly interested in using the tools and methodologies of design in an editorial way, and within a gallery context. Linked to this is a focus on design as an inherently political exercise. Galloway completed an MFA at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 2013. He currently holds a teaching position at the Otago Polytechnic School of Design. This project was commissioned for the exhibition ‘This Time of Useful Consciousness’ at The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, 2017.

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To read more on Matthew Galloway's practice, see 'Invisible and Indivisible: Going Beyond the Exhibition', an article by Chloe Geoghegan published in Pantograph Punch.