“On Their Shoulders” 2016, Photomontage Mixed Media and Found Objects. 72 in x 48 in x 28 in
My work got mentioned in the press for the “Intersectionality” exhibition curated by Richard Haden:
By Phillip Valys from SouthFlorida.com
….The piece calls to mind old-world colonialism and immigration, which is echoed in Anja Marais’ installation “The Crossing,” where nine pairs of adult and children’s dress shoes filled with dirt sit next to an out-of-focus photograph of a muddy cornfield.
Although Marais emigrated from South Africa during apartheid, the shoes evoke the current Syrian refugee crisis, Haden says.
“When migrants are being forced out of their country to escape oppression, they have to pack your belongings hastily. You leave with the shoes on your feet,” Haden says. “It’s a dehumanizing process, these journeys from one world to another.”
Read full article [HERE].
By Anne Tschida for Miami Herald
Two installations leave a searing impression. One is a large photograph of a fallow field; in front of it are shoes — some of them lovely dress shoes — filled with dirt. Artist Anja Marais, an immigrant from South Africa, created the work in reference to the plight of Syrian refugees, who have fled with the shoes they wore on whatever day they ran, tripping through muddy fields in high heels. Adjacent is a sculpture of tattered furniture bundled together, left behind as the journey became more treacherous. Migrants are in a perpetual process of losing and reforming identities.
What do you think?