Photographic still of action on 7 August 2011 outside Paul Roux (Freestate, South Africa). Photographic credit Mika le Roux

The title is of the work, ‘Licked Colony’, is based on a simple pun: One the one hand it refers to the history of colonization in South Africa and, on the other, it refers to the physical act of licking an anthill (which also forms the basis of this artwork). The sensory excess of the latter – of physically licking an anthill and leaving a wet mark on its surface -  here serves to complicate any easy reading of the work. In all this work is animated by the play of material surfaces: here bodies, actions, landscapes and meanings are collectively wrought from a momentary interaction between them (and not from a straightforward ‘imposing-on’ as one might commonly consider the act of political subjugation under the colonial the powers). In this way, otherwise static entities such as the landscape, the body and nature all become active participants in the production of meaning and no longer function as the passive surfaces or objects onto which meaning is projected from the oustide.