Throwback 2007
Simryn Gill | Throwback (detail) 2007 | Interior parts of Tata truck, termite mound soil, river clay, laterite, seashells, fruit skins, leaves, bark and fibre, flowers, glue, resin, milk | Photograph: Ines Agostinelli | © The artist
Throwback 2007
This work was originally produced for the documenta 12 exhibition in Kassel, Germany. It reworks the inner machinery of a 1985 Tata truck, which had spent its working life plying the roads of Malaysia. Tata is an Indian vehicle manufacturer that began manufacturing trucks in 1954, using a design licensed from the German company Daimler Benz, which has a truck factory in Kassel. With the economic rise of China and India, a voracious market for scrap metal has developed, hastening the disappearance of particular objects. Gill recovers the modern forms of the truck parts by casting them in natural materials found near her studio in Port Dickson.
