EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGNS HEROICS
Charles Ninow >

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As monuments to popular uprising and resistance, barricades speak of determination as much as oppression, empowerment as much as hiding. But when such a monument is placed inside a vitrine, behind a pane of glass, its symbolism becomes weakened: shelter is inaccessible to the community, and there is no strength without numbers.

In Charles Ninow’s practice, however, strength is found in a different kind of mass: multiples of the same object combine to make a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This material-solidarity asserts itself again in EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGNS HEROICS, Ninow’s own sandbag barricade constructed at WINDOW.

Whilst the gesture may seem exclusionary – building a wall, closing an aperture – Ninow’s Online work proves the opposite. In the video work Six breakthroughs, the language of violence is used in a way that describes radical openings and the release of tension. Across both venues, the potential harm is not directed toward the viewer but is an act of personal heroics; tests of how much one person can do by himself, how far he can push materials. As in much of Ninow’s work, the original uses of objects are disregarded; what is important is that the objects are useful. The resourcefulness of the maker matters more than the resource itself. A conversation flowing between WINDOW’s physical and virtual sites, EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGNS HEROICS demonstrates a continual re-configuring of symbolic meaning as well as physical, practical use – a model for the political nature of objects and actions.

Charles Ninow is currently completing his BFA(Hons) at the University of Auckland. In 2007 his work was shown at the Gus Fisher Gallery as part of the exhibition Endless Loop, curated by Claire Ulenberg, as well as at WINDOW in the group show Dailies. He is also working on numerous collaborative projects, which will be realised at spaces around New Zealand in the near future.