Exhibition Opening: Empty Vessels: Matthew Galloway & Desert Strawberries: Mohammed Sleiman Labat

Opening: 5pm, Wednesday 29 May

Empty Vessels and Desert Strawberries is a dialogue between Aotearoa New Zealand artist Matthew Galloway and Sahrawi Western Saharan artist Mohamed Sleiman Labat. The two, who have had an ongoing correspondence since meeting in 2016, present different perspectives on Aotearoa’s reliance on phosphate rock from Western Sahara. Phosphate is mineral rock used to make fertiliser, partly fuelling Aotearoa’s high-performing agricultural industry. However, the resource is controlled by Morocco’s violent occupation of the region, which has displaced the Sahrawi people from their land.

Galloway's work traces the movement of phosphate-carrying ships from Western Sahara to New Zealand, raising questions about the country's reliance on a resource tied to the displacement of the Sahrawi people. His installation incorporates 10 years of shipping data, suggesting a potential shift away from Western Saharan phosphate due to growing public scrutiny.

Meanwhile, Sleiman Labat's sound work, adapted from his film Desert Strawberries, fills the gallery with the voices of Sahrawi refugees. It juxtaposes memories of nomadic life before the Moroccan invasion with contemporary accounts of the "family gardens" now flourishing in the camps, a testament to the resilience and ingenuity of the Sahrawi people as they strive for greater food autonomy.

Empty Vessels was originally commissioned by Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga - Hastings Art Gallery, December 2023.

Exhibition open until Friday 5 July

About the Artists

Matthew Galloway lives and works in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. His research-based practice employs the tools and methodologies of design in an editorial way, and often within a gallery context. This way of working emphasises design and publishing as an inherently political exercise.

Mohamed Sleiman Labat is a Sahrawi visual artist and a poet, based in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algerian territory. He was born and raised in these camps. In 2016, after graduating from Batna University, Algeria, with a degree in English literature, Sleiman Labat returned to his community. Sleiman Labat has built a multipurpose community and artist studio space called Motif Art Studio in the Samara camp. The studio itself is built from discarded materials which Sleiman Labat has collected.

Image: Matthew Galloway, film still from Empty Vessels, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.