Ozhopé Collective: A thousand ways to see the dugout canoe

Photo: Ozhopé Collective

We would like to create scrolls composed of images of the rich textual surfaces of the Malawian dugout canoe, which we have gathered since 2017, and nail and glue them to driftwood and other flotsam material found on the shores of the Mediterranean. The technique of collaging the different materials is inspired by Malawian fishers’ methods of repairing the dugout canoe by patching it with different materials such as metal, plastic, and blankets. The fishers’ method of patching turns the dugout canoe into a beautifully textured and textual surface, carrying multiple stories of communities on the shores of Lake Malawi and of the larger Malawian society.

Our scrolls on the Mediterranean shores will therefore bring into conversation Malawian stories and those of the Mediterranean to highlight the ecological, social, and political linkages between these two vastly distanced geographical locations. Most importantly, our project intends to echo Derek Walcott’s famous essay “The Sea is History” to explore how (hi)stories of (im)mobility, survival, and identity are reflected and refracted by these bodies of water and their littoral environs, especially in the wake of capitalist globalization.

Ozhopé Collective

Creators' Note

“A Thousand ways to see the (Malawian) dugout canoe” is a project driven by the urge to highlight the material links between Lake Malawi and the Mediterranean and to reflect on these net-works through aesthetics. It symbolically enacts a convulsive disentanglement from global capitalist net-works of exploitation and expropriation that link the two marine spaces.

The project involved traveling to different places along the Mediterranean coast near Athens to talk to fishers and collect discarded fishing gear and other sea detritus. The aim was to construct sculptural objects and collages in the form of scrolls inspired by the materials and textures of the Malawian dugout canoe (ngalawa). The textures are created by materials such as plastic, tin, tar, and blankets that are used by fishers to patch the canoes.

Our travels took us to Edem, Piraeus, Perama, Rafina, and to the island of Santorini. We wish there had been deeper conversations and more interaction with fishers in these places, so that meaningful exchanges could take place. As we did not have a local guide to accompany us, communication was difficult because of the language barrier. However, during our research, it was not hard to notice that the fishers of Greece and those of Malawi use similar materials – plastic jerry cans, ropes, various nets, cork. The materials gathered in the different places - nets, cork, plastic and wooden flotsam – inspired us to aesthetically present our final project in the form of a planetary fish market or “m.art” (the dot in the word “mart” emphasizes the artistic aspect of the market’s presentation).

It was therefore important to visit the fish market in Athens, which we did thanks to Aktina of 1927 Art Space, and to record ambient sounds of the space.

In the final installation, the fish net featured as a background material for the sculptural objects or as a veil on the collages. Drawing from the image of a fish caught in a fisher’s net, the net figured as a central metaphor for the disentanglement from capitalist extractivism that the work sought to enact. The fishers of Lake Malawi and those of the Mediterranean face similar social and ecological problems such as dwindling species due to overfishing and due to damaged ecosystems; and the overtaking of sustainable traditional fishing practices by exploitative and unsustainable “modern” fishing technologies. The story of the Greek “kaiki” (traditional fishing boat) could be compared with that of the Malawian “ngalawa” in the face of capitalist extraction.

The final presentation during Open Day #12 – the fish m.art – comprised sculptural objects on tables, scrolls on the walls, a video projection, and a curated collection of ecology and oceanography books from the Onassis AIR library. The viewer would encounter these objects as one would encounter objects in a marketplace, prompted to also converse and barter with us.

We are thankful to all who supported and assisted us in this iteration of the project, especially the fishers of Greece.

We hope to continue the project in other marine spaces in different parts of the world.