CARRIER II

In "Splashed", Kawita goes further down the production chain. She delves deep into how our daily commodity -- food and, specifically, fish, a national-export product -- is being sourced.

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Speaking to Life, she explains that her desire to tackle issues of modern slavery and human trafficking, both sadly common in the fishing industry, came from dinner-table conversations with family members, several of them lawyers.

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"In my previous series of works, I had set my sights on topics that were closer to my everyday life," she says. "But in order to fully understand and translate the horrific working conditions on fishing boats, I began by conducting interviews with lawyers and NGOs working on these cases."

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The research-based project resulted in three visual instalments, all set against a single hue of deep-sea-blue backgrounds.

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"Splashed" as a whole has more dramatic intensity than her previous work, but leaves out the playful, spontaneous and self-derisive elements that have characterised Kawita's performance videos so far. Thus, the exhibition borders on the aestheticisation of enslaved fishermen's appalling working conditions.

Nevertheless, Kawita's work is centred on making visible the invisible workforce with an acute sense of social justice.

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Like a thread running through her past and present exhibitions, her performances' titles -- Carrier and The Scale -- act as reminders of how these men and women bring food to our tables every day and help drive our economy forward, but also of how little credit and consideration they receive.

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