Milk for Dust ©
Nasreen (5)
Like rain to sand
He bought blood from my veins, with shameful notes
but saw only refuse in the costume of my body;
Attracted and repulsed, he strangled my throat
And threw me aside to the gutter of the road.
Lifeless and stained, I picked up the chalice of my name
and grabbed pennies in the mud
But it was not enough to buy food for flesh
So tomorrow again, I will sell milk for dust.
In the tedious quest of pleasure for refuge,
Magnetising the infinite, eternal lure of feminine,
Risking the ceaseless sewer of repugnance,
I fill my chalice with sand for blood
And live on empty veins of lust.
(For Nasreen)
He bought blood from my veins, with shameful notes
but saw only refuse in the costume of my body;
Attracted and repulsed, he strangled my throat
And threw me aside to the gutter of the road.
Lifeless and stained, I picked up the chalice of my name
and grabbed pennies in the mud
But it was not enough to buy food for flesh
So tomorrow again, I will sell milk for dust.
In the tedious quest of pleasure for refuge,
Magnetising the infinite, eternal lure of feminine,
Risking the ceaseless sewer of repugnance,
I fill my chalice with sand for blood
And live on empty veins of lust.
(For Nasreen)
Isabel's Harvest (3)
Sometimes, I walk down the
streets of concrete and tar, and listen to the silent screams of commodities
consumed. And then I retreat to the pathways of sand and dust, and I feel the
embers of an affectionate innocence once lost.
‘Milk for Dust’, being an expression of the true value that we sometimes place on the things that we consume, describes the reality that every day, we sell our skills, goods, services, dreams, personality ... in return for various products. Our relationship to friends, animals, people, and the environment is often dependant on the nature of the trade.
Often the trade defines our relationships and we become detached from the person behind the transaction, adopting a persona for the trade.
I often question the true value of our plants, animals, people, bodies, dreams and personalities in the context of the value of the resources used in our products of consumption and the growth of our continuous material and perishable wealth.
‘Milk for Dust’, being an expression of the true value that we sometimes place on the things that we consume, describes the reality that every day, we sell our skills, goods, services, dreams, personality ... in return for various products. Our relationship to friends, animals, people, and the environment is often dependant on the nature of the trade.
Often the trade defines our relationships and we become detached from the person behind the transaction, adopting a persona for the trade.
I often question the true value of our plants, animals, people, bodies, dreams and personalities in the context of the value of the resources used in our products of consumption and the growth of our continuous material and perishable wealth.
The Green House (4)
To connect with the human trade, I built a relationship with three prostitutes based in Johannesburg over a period of 2 years and integrated a day in my life with theirs in my free time on a monthly basis. In a voyeuristic manner, I listened to their dreams, life experiences and disappointments and observed their display of various personas in their telephonic interactions with clients.
Performing mostly voyeuristic photo excursions in partially urban and partially natural settings with each woman separately, I tried to capture the moments when their ‘masks’ were removed, revealing the real ‘face’ and expressions of the person behind the personas.
The models for this portfolio are each daughters, friends, wives, mothers and sex workers that live among us, and share their stories of selling Milk for Dust. Some have been beaten, raped, kidnapped, exploited, but also loved, respected and cared for by someone in their lives. Their dreams and hopes connect with every human spirit and I attempt to humanise their life experience in the mind of the viewer.
Performing mostly voyeuristic photo excursions in partially urban and partially natural settings with each woman separately, I tried to capture the moments when their ‘masks’ were removed, revealing the real ‘face’ and expressions of the person behind the personas.
The models for this portfolio are each daughters, friends, wives, mothers and sex workers that live among us, and share their stories of selling Milk for Dust. Some have been beaten, raped, kidnapped, exploited, but also loved, respected and cared for by someone in their lives. Their dreams and hopes connect with every human spirit and I attempt to humanise their life experience in the mind of the viewer.
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The human body, similar to the human mind, is a
valid resource as an item of trade. Using the face of the ultimate trade,
prostitution, as a metaphor for the faces that we wear in our daily life, I
attempt to take the viewer to the aftermath of places of recycled consumption
by depicting the human form as an item for sale.
The models for this portfolio, each sex workers, daughters, friends, wives and mothers that live among us, share their stories of selling Milk for Dust. Some have been beaten, raped, kidnapped, exploited, but also loved, respected and cared for by someone in their lives. Their dreams and hopes connect with every human spirit and I attempt to humanise their life experience in the mind of the viewer. Attempting to find the innocence once lost in human life experience, my works look for the possibility of the beautiful balance in every unrestrained thing. |
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SILENT REMAINS
