Psalms

Donald Rodney was a prominent black British artist, who died in 1998 from sickle-cell anaemia. The debilitating condition informed his work, standing as a metaphor for the social disease of apartheid and racial discrimination.  This ‘autonomous’ wheelchair  was originally made for Donald Rodney’s final exhibition, which he was unable to attend due to ill health. Made with the assistance of the Centre for Robotics at the University of Plymouth, it is programmed to roam the gallery, at once both compensating for and increasing our awareness of the artist’s absence. Rendered even more poignant since Rodney’s death, Psalms is both a memoir and as an unsettling presence –an enhancement acting independently of its owner.

With special thanks to Guido Bugmann.