Tshepo Sizwe Phokojoe
Burden to Export, 2026
Hessian cloth and thread
104 x 84.5 x 7.5 cm (including frame)
Artwork: 100 x 82 x 26 cm
Artwork: 100 x 82 x 26 cm
Signed and dated on the reverse
Further images
Burden to Export begins with a sack made to circulate through commodity markets. The printed instruction “FOR EXPORT ONLY” is not incidental – it identifies a system in which raw...
Burden to Export begins with a sack made to circulate through commodity markets. The printed instruction “FOR EXPORT ONLY” is not incidental – it identifies a system in which raw materials and labour leave one place while value is often accumulated elsewhere. Phokojoe turns the transport cloth into a hand-worked object, slowing a material designed for cheap movement. Within South Africa’s history of extraction and migrant labour, the work interrogates ideas around who carries the costs of trade, and what remains when a container outlives the goods it was built to move.
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