Sarah D’Souza
Effort, endings and what remains when things are over
Sarah D’Souza is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist interested in the process of disposal, decommissioning and deletion. Using a range of media including film, drawing, assemblage, photography and performance, her work often focuses on what is overlooked, unnoticed or undervalued and is drawn from close observation of mundane, transitory or institutional spaces like offices, care homes, supermarkets and hotels.
Influenced by Mierle Laderman-Ukeles’ Maintenance Art, Hans Haacke’s Aesthetic of Administration and Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document, her work takes the form of spreadsheets, office notices, receipts and project management reports.
Her materials are often blank, impersonal, functional objects like biros, security envelopes, copier paper and disposable gloves. Repetition, accumulation, collection and patination are core to her process – slowly revealing the effort involved in changing a hotel pillowcase through its 100-use life span (Grey Area), retracing a last work notebook onto one page (Pen Pusher), collecting the verbs of erasure from office notices (Notice Period) and reconstituting shopping baskets from discarded till receipts (Self-Scan).
Sarah is also a founding member of @FifthFloorArt a group of conceptual artists interested in the potential for resistance within the system.
