Scramble

Erik Schnack’s kinetic installation Scramble is an uncanny and spatially overpowering depiction of greed, resource extraction, and the persistence of neo-colonialism in a post-colonial socio-political context. Composed of hybrid machine and human organisms, the work conveys the dehumanizing loss of indigenous identity and values, as the colonized become complicit in exploitative systems.

Through Scramble, Schnack offers an independent critique of resource exploitation during the apartheid era while also exposing the often-invisible nuances of contemporary exploitation. His work calls for the undoing of colonial legacies as a necessary intervention for a progressive African presence – one that is empowered, valued, and free from discrimination. In this context, Afrofuturism becomes a means of celebrating the uniqueness and innovation of Black and African culture. Schnack advocates for shifting the dominant Eurocentric art discourse toward an Afrocentric perspective, recognizing African artistic narratives as equally significant and essential.

(Proepper, 2020, p. 150)