HTL Africa Ltd., Miracle Room, installation view with guests, Lagos Biennial 2019.
Founded in 2011, based in Lagos, Nigeria
Miracle Room 2019
Fishing lines, reinforcement rods, strings, paper
2,4 x 1,5 x 1,5 m
Courtesy of the artist
The Miracle Room is a spiral skeletal structure that is walled with multi-coloured strings. It is anchored to the ceiling with fishing lines, to anchor it into its position, especially because it is berthed in the open and susceptible to winds. It is an extremely light structure that is prefabricated off site in three parts. The structure is coupled together by locally fabricated clip joints. The skin is then fitted to the structure by 2-3 people by looping the strings around the structure and knotting them to the frame periodically.
The structural skeleton has been made of market available 12 mm reinforcement rods. It is made in three parts and clipped together with simple lap joints. This is to facilitate its ease of disassembly and transfer. The skin, on the other hand, is manually made, from locally sourced strings. These strings are looped around the structure by a 2-3 man crew and knotted in intervals.
Artist’s statement
To fill a lagoon with a bottle of wine, without money etc…. this is a miracle.
To make these miracles happen, HTL makes a scroll. Our Scroll is a personal temple, a temple for self-expression, where perhaps miracles could happen.
It is a place of personal expression, where you detox off the city and prepare yourself to battle to the death with the forces it throws at you.
It is a calming spectrum of colour, you start red, then end yellow. Like the statue of liberty, it asks for your angry, and disenfranchised, but bring them our calm and willing to take on the city. A miracle in string.
Come and express yourself, like no one can see you. Pray, write, scream dance sit on the floor….
This is HTL. We bring you sound, light, colour and a place of meditation to continually encounter your city… we bring the bottle of wine with which to fill the lagoon. Never forget however that we have made this with $150. A miracle in string, more from less.
