Lot 43.

Four sheets of handmade paper: “Letters from the Landscape (part 2)” by Craig McClenaghan
(Price Guide: R 36,000)

These sheets narrate a series of infographics: The production of one sheet of A4 paper, requires approximately ten litres of water. Annually, the global paper-making industry (which produces approximately ninety-six million tonnes of A4 paper, consumes approximately nineteen trillion litres of water. And four billion trees.

The sheets were exhibited as part of a larger installation, entitled Letters from the Landscape, an experimental mapping project, in which landscape and artefact are interchangeable; and recorded in fragments, imprints and residues. The paper sheets were made in situ, on the surface of the two-and-a-half billion year-old Nooitgedacht Glacial Pavements Archeological Site in the Northern Cape. The marks of three hundred million glaciers and two thousand year old rock art are embossed into the fibre sheets. Inconspicuously impressed into some of the sheets, a series of infographics, only legible with light and shadow, critically highlight the magnitude of resources demanded by the global paper industry from natural landscapes more broadly.

The installation was commissioned by and exhibited at the 18th International Architecture Biennale in Venice, The Laboratory of the Future, in the Curator's Special Project, Mnemonic, in 2023 and again at the Re-Imagining Heritage, Archives and Museums conference in Cape Town in February 2024.

The project was a collaborative multi-disciplinary effort between architects, artists, paper-makers, archaeologists, heritage practitioners, indigenous oral-history storytellers and students.

The artist, Craig McClenaghan, is an award-winning architect, artist and educator. Recent accolades include the Desmond Tutu 'Truth to Power' Exhibition at the Old Granary in Cape Town, a top-three finalist in the Commonwealth Wargraves Commission Memorial Competition for the Company Gardens, the award-winning Nelson Mandela Capture Site Museum Exhibition and the Gold of Mapungubwe exhibition at the Javett Art Centre in Pretoria. Before establishing his eponymous architectural studio, Craig McClenaghan Architecture, he worked on several high profile cultural narrative architectural projects including the Apartheid Museum, Hector Pieterson Memorial Museum, Origins Centre, Liliesleaf Liberation Centre, Freedom Park and Golden Gate Dinosaur Museum.

Re-Imagining Heritage, Archives and Museums, Cape Town, 2024 The Laboratory of the Future, The 18th International Architecture Biennale, Venice, 2023 Award of Merit, South African Institute of Architects, for Pathways through Time, 2018 Pathways through Time, Africa Architecture Awards, 2017 Maropeng Acts 1 & 2, Istanbul Design Biennale, 2016 RIBA Student Gold Medal Nominee, Royal Institute of British Architects, 2004 Bishops Art Prize, 1995

Contact: craig@cmarchitecture.co.za