"Klucis goes to Algeria" (2023)
Installation with sound: aluminum, plexiglass, photograph printed and glued on alucolic, fixed megaphone
Ângela Ferreira’s sculpture, acoustic, and video artworks examine the colonial and postcolonial aftermath in contemporary societies. Her artistic journey commenced during her formative years at an art school in South Africa, where her exploration focused on socialist imagery and art. "Klucis goes to Algeria" is a continuation of a long line of research around the three-dimensional structures of political communication designed by the Soviet Latvian constructivist Gustavs Klucis at the beginning of the 20th century. The title of the work is inspired by Armenian poet Azat Vshtuni's book "Radio Algeria Speaks".
The installation is a new radio transmission tower that continues the sculpture series Talk Towers made as a tribute to various characters the artist admires. The sounds in the work are excerpts from a broadcast by the radio station La Voix de l’Álgerie Libre et Combattante, created by the National Liberation Front (Front de libération nationale, FLN) in Algeria during the liberation war against French colonial powers in the 1950s and 1960s, and from the Algerian film "Patrouille à l’Est" directed by Amar Laskri in 1971.
/ Photo credit: Kristīne Madjare / Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art