Ndiritu sees her Hand-crafted videos as small units of power designed to change the way we perceive the world and each other. Therefore, as an extension of her practice as an international artist The Hand-Crafted Art Bank (THAB) was set up by Ndiritu in 2010 to provide micro-credits to women in Africa who want to become entrepreneurs and set up their own craft businesses. Micro-credits were invented in the 1970's by the Nobel Peace Prize economist Muhammed Yunus and Grameen Bank in Bangladesh as small units of power designed to revolutionize the world. Yunus states it will be possible to eradicate global poverty by 2050 using micro-credits. THAB wants to play a significant part radical goal by getting the global contemporary art world to generously donate a small percentage of the 53 billion dollars in unregulated funds it generates annually to help those in less fortunate circumstances. THAB’s main aim is to get collectors, galleries, auction houses and established artists donate a small percentage of their annual sales towards THAB. Not only will this change the public’s perception of the art world as elitist it will help unite a diversity of groups and funds working towards this important goal. CEO OF THAB
ARTISTS STATEMENT
The invisibility of women especially of what women know (inherent intuitive knowledge) and their contribution to the means of production, in all aspects of society except one – motherhood, is largely ignored. The contribution of what women actually do is largely devalued, from raising children which is undervalued and unpaid, to womens’ contribution to technology. For example, in Africa most sustainable technology is developed and carried out by men who have a basic understanding of womens’ lives and work. This results in the creation of useless, meaningless objects such as pedal grinding mills where in some areas women are forbidden to sit astride, or maize shellers which actually take longer to do the work than women do.
Even in the arts, or more particularly the music industry, where women are more highly visible because of the nature of their work the emphasis is on the act, the Diva and not the rest of invisible contributions to the songwriting and producing music made by women. TV programmes like American Idol and the X factor further perpetuate this dollybird myth which also now unfortunately extends to young male singers.
The fashion within visual art as an artist’s career develops is to usually make bigger and better work, especially in the field of video art. As (primarily masculine) high production values become more important there is a real danger that the work becomes more about glossy surfaces rather than depth of content. The act of making things privately in the studio, as in more (primarily feminine) craft based practices in which the word “craft” is used as a derogative term, is being slowly erased because of this pressure to make high production work.
In my working process I am a blank canvas on which all the invisible means of production become visible. The fact I do all the production jobs from the camera work, lighting, directing, makeup, editing, producing, remixing sound, styling and acting/singing emphasizes my personal belief that the magic and beauty of art is not necessary in hiring the right professional, but in making it yourself. That’s why I choose to be an artist rather than a film director, the fact I enjoy the immediacy of this way of working by seeing the mechanisms of what is going on in a piece and choosing to deconstruct and respond immediately to it if I want to.
Inspired by performance artists from the 1960’s and 1970’s this alternative structure means that I have no where else to hide. I can’t blame anyone else if the lighting is not right but I also don’t have to share the process or the power in making it which remains potent throughout. Therefore to me, the point of making art is to take full responsibility for it, by accepting my specialized technical limitations and still rise to the enjoyable challenge of producing well-made, original, thought-provoking work regardless of this fact.
By taking into account my own shortcomings I am able to see them not as failures but positive personal limitations which inherently make me me and not someone else and uniquely define my work as an artist. Taking full responsibility as the maker also means I have to go deeper into my own self, challenge my personal boundaries and adapt by learning new skills rather than detach from the process. And hopefully learn something valuable about myself in the process.
Myself as the origin of the work means accepting and forgiving my lack of perfection and this enables me to leave my imprint within the entire cost efficient ‘hand-crafted’ process. And this is where the simplicity and potential beauty in this way of working lies: I made it, I hand-crafted myself. That is why I believe in the validity of ‘Hand-crafted Videos’ as the basis for my practice for now and in the future.
In order to live out this process of making hand-crafted work I have chosen to invent my own economic system and work directly with museums, galleries, and collectors. This strategy builds good long-term relationships and bucks the inevitable trend as a video artist of having to make high-production videos or make high volume works of art like painters and sculptors, as both these methodologies fundamentally interfere with my natural creative process To cause a further paradigm shift in our perception of (video) art and the way it is produced, I also choose to distribute the videos for exhibition through my own studio or archives like LUX. Hence, I am concerned with preserving my independence, freedom and valued time on all levels to continue understanding my working process and myself as a creative growing entity.
Thus, Hand-crafted videos function both as art with a small ‘a’ as a collective, democratic, creative tool and art with a capital ‘A’ as a commodity in the art world, bringing together two disparate viewpoints and socio-political economic systems for the sake of progressive re(evolution). And I see a direct correlation with this innate desire to be successful yet free with small craft businesses in developing countries that begin trading by using micro-credit.
N.B. At present THAB is a fictional bank and art project that is investigating micro credits and the art market.
Grace Ndiritu 2010
