Useless Machines, 2021

Useless Machines comprises a series of moveable wooden wall sculptures, hand-stitched and wrapped in found, waste, and charity surplus fabrics, and a video piece, Useless Machines Infomercial. They move and look like idiosyncratic machines, but are entirely functionless, as foils to the useful machines lost to landfills. The video piece ‘advertises’ the sculptures, fusing the visual grammar of teleshopping with the idiosyncrasies of Nollywood cinema

Useless Machines is a darkly humorous response to electronic waste dumping, a neocolonialist practice whereby wealthy countries dump old machinery such as phones and laptops into less affluent countries in the global south, increasingly in Africa

Useless Machines was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries and QUAD (Derby)’s ‘Play During The Pandemic’, as well as being shortlisted in ARTS THREAD x Gucci Global Design Graduate Show and Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre’s The Next Thing Moving Image Award