ROSE DAVEY: I just thought I would share a few thoughts on Abdulrazaq's work, there's a few things I want to ask you about and it's going to meander a bit [...], I'll talk a bit, we'll chat, and then I'll hand over to questions, because I'm hoping that there are things that you guys want to know about the work. Hopefully we can cover all of that in this really nice, intimate setting surrounded by the work. So, I've only known of your work for about a year or so, and what struck me immediately was the material of the work. I'm a painter myself, also working with collage and other things, but from an artist's point of view, you're always intrigued about how things are made, and you're always intrigued about why the artists have selected the material that they choose to use within their work. And I wonder, if I didn't know from reading, if I would know that they were shipping pallets... I might, I might not, but as soon as you know that, it then opens up the work in this whole different way. And what I realized whilst looking at the work is that there's this really beautiful quality of it being quite rudimentary, quite straightforward. You can see how it's made. You can see how it's put together. You can see drips of glue, you can see staples, you can see nails, you can see all those things. And yet - I think it shows how long you've worked with this material - because you know it inside out. I think there's something beautiful about the work, in the sense that it's quite crude in a way, but it shows a real understanding of that material. And so, in relation to that, my question to you would be, do you feel that the material is soon to be exhausted, that you've used it to the point where you feel there's a limit to how much you can make? Or do you feel that there's a huge amount more to come using this particular material?
ABDULRAZAQ AWOFESO: Thank you. Thanks for coming. Thank you everyone for coming through. Regarding your question: actually, you know, before this current project, with every project I would think this could be the last. What next? I don't even know. I always keep my options open; I'm not limiting myself. That's one thing. So, if someone had asked me last year if I would be ending up doing something like that, I wouldn't know. Or if someone asked me, what next, I wouldn't be able to decide. But as fate would have it, when MAC (Midlands Art Centre) invited me to create a commission, I was not even thinking in this direction. [...] When they gave me the brief, I was thinking of something else. But one thing about me is once I start working, I allow the process to evolve by itself, naturally and organically, and I will let it translate freely. So, with that, if I would say: could this be the end? I don't think so. I don't know what is next, what dimension would be next, and that's why I sometimes say I'm a multimedia artist, because the next thing could be involving this material. [...] There is no limitation, to be honest. It's endless and it doesn't have any boundary. So, I have that potential to still explore further, if something else comes up, or I still continue in this format. It will be too premature for me to say this is where it ends. It's not ending here. Obviously, there's still more to explore.
RD: So, you still feel there is much to gain from working with this material?
AA: Exactly
RD: It's interesting you say that it's not premeditated, so you don't think 'I'm now going to make this'. So, is it that within your studio, your working environment, you have things around you, and something will kind of catch your eye and then something else [...] do you start to pull things? Do you have an idea in your head of the object you're making?
AA: If I want to start any process, I have the idea in my head. And it's funny, I don't even sketch. I just have the idea in my head. It may sit there, and I may be wandering around doing some other thing, but the idea will still be there, and it will be germinating right here in my head. It could take days, it could take hours, but I would rather allow it to be germinating in my head, incubating, taking time until it becomes fully mature. So, at times, I tend to just start working. [...] What I've noticed is, once I get into the process, the form starts taking shape organically, without having to sit down. If I sit down and I plan and I sketch and say, 'this is what I want to do', it always takes a different form. So, as I said, so the idea would always be in my head germinating. I can put it down, but it will not go the way I decide to sketch it down, or whatever. So, what it always comes to: the moment I start consistently working on that thing, then it might start taking form gradually, So that's just one thing about me and my own process.
RD: So, it's through process? It's the process that kind of starts the course. It begins with that, and it goes off somewhere else.
AA: It begins with the process. And then as time goes on, it starts germinating and developing gradually and taking shapes and forms. That's how it is for me.
RD: And specifically relating to this show, do you think of the things you make as as personalities? Do you think of them as having a life of their own? Would you describe them to carry a certain kind of feeling?
AA: Yes, probably. It is possible. But also, without having to place so much burden on that aspect, I would allow it to be free flowing and rather see the process [...] than trying to name it or say, 'this how it should be'. So, I think I enjoy it more when I work in that kind of environment.
RD: Because I think I find them quite cheeky [...] and quite humorous. I think there's so many things at play with them [with] this idea of transformation. So, what you're doing is you're working with a material that is throw-away, it doesn't really have much value, it serves a purpose - to carry goods. But then you're replicating those goods that that structure carries and ships globally around the world. Then they are kind of counterfeit goods, in a sense, or they're copies of them. So, it's this thing of taking something that's lowly to make something high-quality, luxury goods, and then in essence, low again in the way that it's made, but then it's high again, because they are objects, and they are artworks. So, there's this continual transformation of them. Also, if you take the Miu Miu dress: I love how the buttons on it feel like buttons as in a push button. 
RD: There's this two-way thing all the time. [...] But the dresses themselves: there's the Armani exchange and the McQueen over there; they almost look quite fuddy duddy - they look like old lady dresses a little bit. So, I was just really enjoying the humour in that.
RD: And it reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons, where Marge gets a Chanel suit and she keeps wanting to wear it, so she has to change each time to keep up with her rich, posh friends. So, I just felt that there was a lot of humour within the work. And I wondered, because [...] I feel like you are a smiley, shiny person, if humour is ever in your mind when you're making them or displaying them as well?
AA: Yes, of course. I think naturally, it's probably part of me. And as you said, maybe you've noticed, maybe other people have noticed too. I try to just evoke happiness. Naturally, I try to be. I think also, whoever you are would reflect in your work as an artist. It may not be deliberate, but naturally the personality may, directly or indirectly, somehow tend to show up in what you're doing, because art is that sort of linkage spiritually between what you're doing. So, for me, I don't always tend to say 'Oh, it must there must be humour' or 'there must be, these sort of characteristics of myself' [...]. I think naturally, it just tends to happen [...] even if you're not going to transfer it physically, but somehow spiritually.
RD: Even just in the Lakers vest - obviously we know that's not a Lakers vest - it's like you've etched your name into a bench.
RD: It's that same language. Even with the iron as well - it's almost verging on the absurd. That reminded me of Man Ray's (the surrealist) kind of sculpture, the iron with the nails in it [Man Ray, Cadeau, 1921]. 
RD: It's this thing of: we know that these are clothes, but they're kind of absurd and useless because you can't get in them, you can't wear them. And that's another thing, in terms of the materiality, that I really enjoy - this flatness, this way that the jeans on the wall are folded together, and some of them you see the hanger in between them, but there's no way of getting into them. You know, you can't use them. [...] It also led me to wonder: can you envisage a scenario where, because I know you've done performance in the past, the clothes could be worn, or maybe they could be animated, or in motion on a catwalk, [...] would you ever want to develop it in that direction? Or is it important to you that there is this flatness that is separate?
AA: The idea is to be limitless. I wouldn't want to say: 'It may not get to that stage'. It may and it may not. Some years ago, when I was in Johannesburg, I had a project that I had to animate. I started making these little sculptures. And I did a project at the arts residency, I had to animate the little figures for that. And it worked. That was my first time trying animation with the collaborator. [...] And for me, that would have been my first time doing animation. It worked for that particular project. But I've never had any cause to also say I wanted to animate anything. But if I had a cause to... definitely. I would definitely want to explore. So, I said, I don't like limiting myself. I like keeping my ideas and options, especially as a multimedia person because the world is evolving. There might be things that you would want to put out there.
RD: I can imagine seeing these on a stage in an opera. And also, I think there's the real kind of friction [in the works] - you don't want to touch them, [...] you might get a splinter, because they're rough and ready. So, in one sense, they're really tactile. And like the zip on the pair of jeans, you wouldn't want to zip that up in a careless manner. 
RD: I also just find it intriguing to imagine the body in interaction with them, because we understand what they are - [...] they're garments, but they're not set up to be worn, or even just to touch the body because of the nature of the way that they're made - which I really like. I also wondered: would it ever be of any interest - or can you imagine a scenario - where you would make these, but they would be more polished or more refined? Or is it very important that the pallet doesn't lose its identity in the material that it is?
AA: Yes, definitely. There would definitely be that point, because, for example, the works I have at MAC in Birmingham, they are not painted. And that was simply because part of the brief I was given was that there should be no paint. They [MAC] wanted something to be made naturally from recycling. So, I had to transform the work straight from the pallet and make sure that visually you can relate with it. So, what I did was I got quite a lot of the blank, normal wood pallet. I started the project last year, so earlier this year, I had a residency in somewhere in Dorset - I had the host keep pallets for me. on arriving there, I found blue pallets, and that was my first encounter with these. I knew there were blue pallets, but I'd never really come across them. What do I have to do? I have to start, you know, scraping off the blue and make it natural [again]? I didn't do that. Rather, that was where the Jeans stuff started, because I found that instead of trying to scrape off the blue part and make it clear, I rather decided to convert them into 'denim'. [...] So then, when I came back to Birmingham, I started looking for more colours. So, I knew that now there are colour pallets out there. I just needed to look for more. So, it took me quite some time to get them - they're quite scarce. I found blue, I found green. Even the green on that one (points to work below), this is naturally as it was. I didn't paint it.
RD: So that's as it was found?
AA: Yes, as it was found. I painted the red, but the green, I decided to leave it that way. So, I didn't paint that one, I just decided to work with the green pallet. So, I started finding that there are different colours. As I said, they're scarce, scarcer than the normal, natural pallets. But it just brought out another aspect of my search for the material. And I did find it. So that's how these things always come up. So, you know, you come across the material and it poses to you - this is what it is. It's now up to you to use it the way you want to, as an artist. So, your creative intuition is up to you, how you decide to execute it.
RD: I wanted to ask you about the colour, because I was trying to see if I could figure out what was existing like the green and what, if any, was painted. So, this work here and the one over there (points to artworks on the wall) are those both painted?
AA: Yes, they're painted.
RD: So, they're painted after?
AA: Exactly, yes.
RD: But that's not how you began?
AA: No, exactly - that wasn't how I began. I began with the unpainted ones. This one [another artwork] was also one of early stages. So, I wasn't painting them, but it was at the later stage, which was after I was done with the commission for the MAC exhibition, then I started working towards this. I wanted there to be some sort of a difference [...] and clarity between the exhibition here [at Ed Cross) and there [at MAC] even though they're both related. I just wanted to present that sort of clarity. The works there [at MAC] are plain, you see the colours, they are natural - that's how the wood came. I never painted them. That was how I found the blue pallets, [or] whatever colour that was existing there. But here [at Ed Cross], I decided to paint because I also had some ideas I felt would be better interpreted when painted.
RD: That's a big leap: the idea of applied colour is very different from found colour. And [...] you're working with material; you're working with what's there. You found it. You've seen the blue, that can relate to denim. [...] It's like a collaboration between you and the material, just you as the artist manipulating what's there. As soon as you start to apply paint outside, that seems like another layer, another transition, and more in the traditional painting canon. Yes, I felt like it was a bit of a leap, and I also was intrigued, where did you get the colour from? How did you choose to put it? Was it just around?
AA: The colour - so what I do is I get my colours from hardware shops. I use hardware things to paint, then I fix them later on. So, there's nothing spectacular about the product. They are just normal colours but I just found them to work better on wood because of the surface. These are hard surfaces.
RD: And this (pointing to Miu Miu dress) is painted and sanded over, isn't it?
AA: Yes, exactly - painted and sanded. Painted and sanded because I also wanted to give it some sort of bohemian, vintage look. So, the best method was to paint and sand afterwards.
RD: They're in-between-y colours, though.
AA: Yes, I didn't want it to just be bland [...] I wanted it to be a bit of paint...maybe fading. It could be some sort of dim colour. So that was just it. [...] I painted some, then I looked at it after I finished painting. For example, when I painted this Miu Miu, it was pink, but I felt like it was too flashy for me - it may not resonate with what I wanted to portray, so I had to sand it down. AA: The one there on the hanger, which is a Valentino T- shirt - I didn't paint it. I just used the combination of the green pallet and the blue pallet. 
AA: But the ones I painted: [...] it gave me some sort of thought process, thinking 'Do I want this colour? Am I pleased? Am I not?'
RD: Yes, like 'What's my criteria? What am I trying to do with it?'
AA: Exactly, yes. So that process sort of stressed me a bit in comparison to the unpainted ones. Because, as I said, imagine I've been working for months without painting them, then I'm now faced with the last batch that I had to paint. I actually I did that last because I was finished with many of them, and I had to decide which ones I want to paint, and which ones am I not going to paint? And that was for this exhibition, the other ones went on for the Birmingham exhibition. I was contemplating - should I paint? What colour? That part took a while, I had to leave them for some time. And, you know, just go around and in my head, I'd be playing with or thinking what colour would it be? So, when I finished painting, I'm like, ‘okay, this is not what I wanted’, and I'll have to, especially with this one (points to work below), start sanding. AA: But this one (points to work below) I had already decided I wasn't going to paint. 
AA: So, it all boils down to which colour and what am i going to paint and not paint? But I did that, and I felt, ‘okay, let me just start sanding down, just to dim down the colour’. I didn't want something too flashy.
RD: Yes, I think because of the nature of the material, using the pallets, which carry so much of the work, I think it is this really fine balance - whatever you do to them has to be kind of in sync - and that's why I so intrigued with the colour - but you've managed it in a way that doesn't make it feel jarring next to the ones that are just found colours. There's this kind of beautiful collaboration between the two. And you know, the verticality of the strips it kind of dictates where you put the colour. And the flatness - that's also what I was so struck by because - what do you think of them as? Are they paintings? Are they sculpture? Are they objects? Are they installation? Does it even matter?
AA: For me, it doesn't matter. I just see them as artworks. I think that makes it much more simplified and much better for me. But as I said, from the onset, I always wanted to fuse painting and sculpture together. So, I succeeded in that aspect right from the beginning. So, always painting and sculpting. Sculpting and painting merged together into one instead of painting separately. But my background was actually as a painter.
RD: You can tell.
AA: And later when I started sculpture, I felt like ‘oh, I can't leave one behind’. So […] I decided to bring both together. That was just it. The idea of working and painting together simultaneously: for me I found solace in that aspect. Whereby I didn't have an option to choose between either painting or sculpture - but rather merging both together.
RD: Which they do, because it's the relationship to the wall, and then it's also these as freestanding objects. But it’s really funny - the one thing in the show I felt shouldn't be here was that pole (Rose points at the Clothes Rail Installation below, Abdulrazaq laughs heartily). It's interesting when every other piece of wood in this show is your wood. What's that doing here?
RD: But that's the power of the material, because it's still wood, but for me, it felt so wrong. It’s not even a negative, it's just an observation, which intrigued me. I was just like, ‘oh!’
AA: When I was doing this, I thought about one thing: these things are quite heavy. I wondered, whatever the amount of works that will be hanging on it, the pole needs to be strong enough. So, first of all, I just used my mop in the studio - The stick, chopped off. One [mop] is quite thin. One is thicker. So, this is the thickest one, When I used the thinner one - I was even contemplating the possibility of four or five clothes - and I could see it bending. I don't want that! so I ended up using the thicker, strong one.
RD: Yes. So, there is another important or noteworthy thing about your work that I think is often understandably written about, and yet I was intrigued to hear you say: that you don't consider yourself an environmentalist or an activist. But obviously the work speaks of […] global transit. And it makes reference to the huge number of textiles that get shipped from the West into countries within Africa and other places, and the irresponsibility of those countries that are shipping that, and the impact that has on those countries. But even if you don't consider yourself an activist or environmentalist in that way, the work obviously touches on issues of sustainability, and huge other areas of interest that are quite loaded and political. How do you look at those circumstances? How do you see yourself? Are you just someone who is kind of reflecting, who is shining a light on it? Or do you think there's a kind of a deeper political edge to the work.
AA: I didn't consciously plan out any of this - to become an environmentalist or whatever. Also, I wasn't going to be comfortable styling myself as an activist - I don't want to be an activist. I'm just an artist. But before I started out making things, I worked with Greenpeace when they moved to Africa. And as I said, there are things that you do that you may not know will reflect later. Then with Greenpeace I was doing fundraising, and I became quite aware about environmental issues. For me, when I started working with pallets, it wasn't really with the aim of combatting environmental problems. I just wanted to use this material. But as it is now, I find myself at the crossroads of artist, environmentalist and being an activist, which I'm not - it's not even a term I like to use. It's just exactly what it is. I just want to be making. I just want to be an artist, then maybe the world out there finds it notable to make their own definition, then it's fine.
RD: I think there can be a lot of pressure on artists to make those political statements and align with a side? And I think I definitely agree with that. Maybe you are making a work, and the work may touch upon certain things, but that's for the work, and let's say - for others to run with. I think what you are doing so well, which I always find so eternally enduring and engaging, is the transformative nature of art. That you take something and you do something with it, and when […] physically, it's the same thing, but your interaction with it has kind of taken it through all of these transformations, and then it starts to kind of talk about this bigger thing, […] and you've created this space - conceptual and material - that people can then come into and put their own ideas within. And that is the quality and the beauty of the work.
