Fruit: The Fruit of Filtered Smoke, 2019-2022
Recovered cigarette filters from smoked cigarettes, Adhesive
73 x 75 x 70 cm
Fruit: The Fruit of Filtered Smoke is a commentary on how much we have become addicted to consuming, how much we use, and how much we are affected by use – we are contained and controlled.
I constantly thought of the palm fruit and the breadfruit as I built, working to recreate and bring our attention to natural common fruits that are really essential to my native people.
Whilst I thought of the fruit, I also thought of the large ceramic pots which my ancestors made in the past. My mother used to like to store drinking water in a traditional ceramic pot because it keeps the water chilled and flavoured. For many years she has not been able to find a pot that she can use. She is now 83.
This object made out of unnatural fibre- plastic, is to remind us of how much we have changed. It is also a way to deal with the loss that some the changes bring.
Process:
Fruit: The Fruit of Filtered Smoke brings together thousands of cigarette filters in this fruity object. I have explored modelling- a process of making pots that women from my home -Umuahia- where I was raised, used to be known for.
This is my effort at testing and demonstrating how an old practice of making, like modelling can be embraced using some other unusual material. I adopted my tacit and practical knowledge of modelling, to appeal to and suit my personal creativity and current practice.
One cigarette stub after another, I cut away and released the filter (synthetic fibres) from the cigarette stock paper. I washed the bunch of synthetic fibres over some rounds of soaking, in bleach to sanitise the material. Usually, I shape the fibres into various kinds of textures and forms.
Separately, I modelled little palm nuts shaped motifs (8 different shapes/sizes) with PVA glue as my slip. I layered nuts over nuts on a spherical amateur. Underneath the layering of the nuts, I have laid the same cigarettes fibre which I processed to be like sponge to hold the more rounded hard nuts in place- layer upon layer.