Carving Lines refers primarily to the marking and codifying the border; an acknowledgement of the violence of the action. The materials and form refer to historical aspects of the process; the horns to the oxen of the pioneer column, the wire to the nature of contemporary structures, and the bottom layer, blackened out versions of the domain conceived through Google Earth recalling the remote, mediated position from which the territories were carved up and occupied. That these territories were conceived (carved up/allocated/grabbed?) from a remote and mediated position is intriguing – whilst the means in which this was achieved has changed considerably, the manner in which we understand territories via Google Earth, or similar, echoes the process and secondary understanding (if not the motive of the colonisers).

Whilst the mapping involved in the bottom layer of the work established a literal base layer to the ideas, the wire makes a mark over this map – a symbol, but useless unless it corresponds with a practical or physical reality. The wire makes reference to that physical entity; the boundary, the border, the division, the carving. That which determines who is inside, and who is out. Who am I, and who is the “other”. It points to the question of who controls the opening and closing and who may proceed across this line. It asks, how are these crossings facilitated, when are they legal/illegal, what are the requirements to make a crossing – who should administer these requirements, and to what extent are these enabled.