"If the signal figure of contemporary economic life is the illegal immigrant, the symbolic figure of contemporary political life must be the border: that intangible construct which materialises in order to separate those with rights from those without.
J’s wonderful first book, Elementary Calculus, is swarming with borders: they contain that which is at once beautiful and distant, harbour symbols of peace, absorb within them the etched hopes of the nameless, prop up those with little support and less freedom, demarcate territory, decry the indifference of chance, police access, are incessantly traversed by animals indifferent to their symbolism, provide respite, serve as message boards, clarify a ritualised separation, offer hope, labour, contrast and poetic metaphor.
The story of the plight of the subjects of this book could be read in an inventory of the walls that it depicts."
–– from In the Shadows of a Wall by Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa. read the entire essay at the great leap sideways.
• in the shadows of a wall
in news