Tantalum Memorial - Reconstruction - a new artwork by Harwood, Wright, Yokokoji at 01SJ Biennial, San Jose Museum of Art :: May 10 - August 31, 2008.

Tantalum Memorial - Reconstruction€ is the first in a series of telephony-based memorials by the artists group Harwood, Wright, Yokokoji, to the people who have died as a result of the €coltan wars€ in the Congo. The installation is constructed out of electromagnetic Strowger switches, the basis of the first automatic telephone exchange invented in 1888. The movements and sounds of the switches are triggered by the phone calls of London’s Congolese community as they participate in €œTelephone Trottoire, a concurrent project also built by the artists in collaboration with the Congolese radio program Nostalgie Ya Mboka.

Since August 1998 there have been 3.9 million deaths in the €œcoltan wars€ and there are currently over 35,000 Congolese refugees in the UK alone. Coltan is mined for the metal tantalum, an essential component of mobile phones and other communication devices that is now more valuable than gold and coveted by dozens of international mining companies and warring local militias. This work weaves together the ambiguities and consequences of globalization, transnational migration and refugees and the impact of our addiction to constant communication.

Telephone Trottoire is a €œsocial telephony€ network that calls Congolese listeners, plays them a phone message and invites them to record a comment and pass it on to a friend by entering their telephone number. This builds on the traditional Congolese practice of €œradio trottoire or pavement radio€, the passing around of news and gossip on street corners in order to avoid state censorship.

Tantalum Memorial Residue (courtesy Manifesta7) will be the second in the series, this time utilizing a 1938 telephone exchange rescued from the old Alumix factory in Bolzano, Italy. This is also the site of Manifesta 7 - the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, 19th July to 2nd November, 2008.

Tantalum Memorial Reconstruction will next be shown at The Science Museum in London UK in October 2008. This version will be triggered by the phone calls of a new telephony project created during workshops that will bring together young people from a Greenwich school with Congolese asylum seekers. The installation will then travel to Chalkwell Hall in Southend-on-Sea, Essex where it will launch the new centre for international arts organization Metal.

Tantalum Memorial Reconstruction May 10 - August 31, 2008 is A FUSE Commissioned Residency for the 2nd Biennial 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge, ZERO1, CADRE Laboratory and the Lucas Artists Program, Montalvo Arts Center.

The artists Harwood, Richard Wright and Matsuko Yokokoji have worked together since 2004, firstly as €œMongrel€ - an internationally recognized artists collective. Previous projects include the first online commission from the Tate Gallery, London, a BAFTA award nomination and work in the permanent collections of the Pompidou Centre Paris and the Centre for Media Arts in Karlsruhe (ZKM).

http://www.mongrel.org.uk
http://www.mediashed.org
Telephone Trottoire
ZERO1 Biennial
Manifesta7