Francis Alys is known for his poetic and comedic techniques that he uses to confront realities of his hometown. In a piece titled âParadox of Praxis I (Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing)â he is seen pushing a large block of ice around Mexico City with the block becoming smaller and smaller through the duration of the work. Alys pushed the block for a total of 9 hours before it had entirely melted with his film work only making the video a few minutes long.
The idea behind his work is the labor of something leading to nothing. The video was created to examine day to day life in his city. This work reminded me of our stacking workshops as we created large towers just to knock them down, these stacks having no benefit after we were finished with them.
John Vea is a New Zealand/Tongan artist. His work explores migration, labor and employment. A 2009 work created by John Vea and titled âTribute to Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.â is a thirty minute video of John stacking and restacking cement blocks at Piha beach whist the waves crash down and move the blocks, John Vea uses physical labor to pick the pieces up and return them to his stack. He used this work to respond to the 2009 Samoa earthquake and tsunami to share the resilience of Pasifika people.
bibliography
-public delivery. 2019. âWhy Did Francis AlĂżs Push a Block of Ice for 9 Hours?â Public Delivery. Public Delivery. April 2019. https://publicdelivery.org/francis-alys-ice/.
-https://francisalys.com/author/francisalys. 2015. âFrancis AlĂżs.â Francis AlĂżs. June 16, 2015. https://francisalys.com/sometimes-making-something-leads-to-nothing/.
âBlog Archiveâ: n.d. CIRCUIT Artist Film and Video Aotearoa New Zealand. Accessed September 27, 2021. https://www.circuit.org.nz/blog/tonga-%E2%80%98i-onopooni-tongan-contemporary-pataka-porirua-12-april%E2%80%9324-august-2014.
Gordon-Smith, Ioana. 2013. âVisible Traces.â Ioana Gordon-Smith. October 1, 2013. https://ioanagordonsmith.com/2013/10/01/visible-traces/.