Untitled (Zimbabwean Queen of Rave)

"I was born out of first and second generation Swiss immigrant parents into what is now Zimbabwe. It was not my choice to be born into a small minority of privileged whites in an African country about to undergo radical changes. My background is fraught with problems. Issues of racial entitlement and advantages over the local majority were and still are unsettled, testing ethics and morals. My family’s roots there were shallow, and we were not even typical whites. I have been grappling with this all my life. It does however have all the elements for a very interesting story that I find myself compelled to tell, whether or not my voice is considered legitimate.

The protest footage in Untitled (Zimbabwean Queen of Rave) is from South Africa during the apartheid era. The bricolage seen in the cultural objects of the geopolitical south are particular to these areas and locate them as being from there. The recycling of materials there also plays a big role in this, and this process of recycling pre-dates the current trend in more developed parts of the world. This was a necessity borne out of poverty in the region, the result of a legacy of exploitation by more developed countries.

These visual strategies have been an inspiration for me. This hands-on, do-it-yourself approach combined with skill-sets that have been replaced by technology in more developed countries, are empowering for the individual and sustainable in the long term. Tapping into the abundance of human labor in a conceptual way is how I like to work. Low tech vs. High tech.

I like the idea of recycling images and material, putting a new spin on them and giving them a new lease on life. In the case of Untitled (Zimbabwean Queen of Rave) the images to describe my subjective reality did not exist. So to recreate that experience I have woven together existing footage of similar events in the form of a montage. Certain materials resonate for me, often cheap, ubiquitous materials that tell a story. There is a common thread running through my art-making process that is similar to a DJ remixing cultural artifacts."

Dan Halter in a statement to PLATFORM:VB (August 2014)