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A short note about "The Garden of Delights", ensemble of 8 painted bronze sculptures, 1998 The impetus for these works came in the summer of 1995, when I saw the show at the 46. Biennale di Venezia curated by Jean Clair: Identity and Alterity. Figures of the Body 1895/1995.

"As a South African, I am particularly sensitive to notions about race and provenance. My life has been spent in equal parts in Africa and Europe trying to avoid the categorizations cultivated in every society in larger or smaller measures.

In the section entitled "The Age of Positivism", I was appalled to see the studies of 19th century European scientists and doctors dealing with the classification of human beings according to their physiognomies. More enlightening were the illustrations by René Marage and Georges Demeny of instruments to "measure auditive acuity" or to make a chronophotography of speech". These comical figures took my fancy and I went outside, escaping the oppressive atmosphere of the show, sat down at the canal edge and made preparatory sketches of scurrilous plastic shapes celebrating the joy of just having five senses to do what I liked with. These were later followed by large drawings on paper.

I finally got to make the bronzes a good year after I left Italy, after arriving in Luxembourg and having made acquaintance with Roland Barthes "Fragments of a discourse on love". The mouths, eyes, noses, fingers and ears are just that - instruments of perception and interpretation of our outside world and the beings moving about in it. They are also a reminder of the original sense of these body parts, which is to discover and partake sensually of what is around us. The garden is a metaphor for my African, spiritual home, which is, in fact, the home of all mankind - as newest archaeological and societal studies are proving. And, last but not least, they are a manifestation of my optimism about the human capacity to love and delight.

Sally Arnold
Luxembourg
August 1999