Artist:
Michael Rakowitz (born 1973 Great Neck, USA; lives and works in Chicago, USA)

Materials:
Sculpture using salvaged building materials (demolished Aboriginal houses), wire, copper pipe, and wood.

Description:
The work was produced in collaboration with groups in the contested Aboriginal neighborhood of Sydney known as The Block. The project also includes a narrative series of drawings, as well as this sculptural element. The model functions as a broadcast tower for Koori Radio, a local Aboriginal station.

“The project involved re-inscribing the Monument to the Third International by Tatlin which is a monument which I see as inscribed with promise and optimism but also with failure because it was never built. Talking about the skepticism of the artists, the monument maintains this level of wonder which I am very comfortable with because I always think an [architect’s] best projects are the one which don’t get built as you see them in the [sketchbooks] and you have this ability to wonder. I saw this as a form of dreaming in a way that the Dreaming is a big part of Aboriginal culture…

“It’s like using this symbol which is so iconic, almost like a graphic design logo for revolution, and looking at how it can envelop a lot of things, its becomes a semiotic thing, its also about architecture, its also about engineering, and material culture and so on. I think by re-quoting it, it becomes a way to get beyond it, to have this material from the local context in Australia speaking to something which it is not related to.”
—Michael Rakowitz, interview with Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Zanny Begg, website of Zanny Begg.