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Jable Pardo - Viele Grüße aus Canaria

With gánigos made of glass melted from Gran Canaria’s sand, Jable Pardo - Viele Grüße aus Canaria develops a critical spatial enquiry into the illicit mining of sand in Western Sahara to engineer the world’s largest artificial beaches in the Canary Islands. The vessel replicas are a testimony to the collapsing of extractive operations, the weaponizing of archaeological evidences, and tourism-led development as propaganda during Spain’s Francoist Regime.

The pre-historical claims defended by regime officials over the Canary Archipelago served to validate the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco and Western Sahara. These regions were abundant with resources such as phosphate rock, smooth Saharan sand, abundant fisheries or onshore oil deposits. In parallel, the islands were fashioned as sandy Hesperides by tourist propaganda, with associated re-development used to legitimise the last and only authoritarian regime in Europe. Jable Rubio (yellow sand), is the name given to the sand that blows from the Western Saharan desert over to the islands. Beyond a testament to EurAfrica rebranded, Jable Pardo confronts the vision of the Sahara region as the ultimate crucible for the European civilisation du loisir (leisure civilization), where evidences and propaganda glow bright with extractivism.

Jable Pardo is supported by HBK Braunschweig BS Projects and the Canada Art Council.

HBK Gallery [Braunschweig, DE]

http://jablepardo.tours/