Roughly Documented, Three Million Eight Hundred Ninety Four Thousand and Fifty Six (2021)

For her newest group of works Roughly documented, Three Million Eighty Eight Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Six (2021) and Roughly Documented, Three Million Eight Hundred Ninety Four Thousand and Fifty Six (2021), Garner created two objects, each of them like flags hanging in a metal frame so that they have clearly identifiable front and reverse sides. Using various white-colored silicon strips that imitate different parts of the body, the artist sewed surfaces that together reproduce the patterns on the national flags of the United Kingdom and Portugal. The white skin on the British flag here appears not only fragmented but covered in blisters. Whereas on the larger part of the Portuguese flag the surface is covered with marks of scarlet fever, the smaller parts show marks of syphilis and smallpox. The reverse sides are only visible by means of two mirrors placed on the wall behind these hanging objects. If you look at the images reflected in these mirrors, then similar silicon body parts as on the front side are seen, but instead of white here they are dark brown and black. This work was made during the global Covid-19 pandemic we are still witnessing and it addresses the white body as the ​“colonial body,” driven from a historical perspective by the act of taking possession of hitherto unknown territories, while permanently spreading illnesses and viruses. Historically communicable diseases by white bodies referred to in this context are syphilis, smallpox, scarlet fever, the bubonic plague, measles, typhoid fever, yellow fever and malaria.