COST Artist Statement

COST is an ongoing project that traces how extraction, violence, and historical omission persist in material, form, and memory. Rooted in the entangled histories of England and South America—especially Uruguay—it follows the colonial legacy of raw wool.

In the 19th century, the British turned Uruguay’s Pampas into vast sheep pastures. The wool trade boomed. Wool was shipped back to England to fuel the textile industry, while the land was seized, Indigenous communities were displaced, and economies were restructured to serve imperial markets. For those in Britain, wool arrived clean and silent—its violent origins obscured.

Here, wool is not neutral. It is politically charged. Its softness belies the weight it carries: of land taken, cultures erased, and lives lost. Each work in Cost is a node in a wider rhizomatic network—linking bodies, time, trade, and silence.

The pieces are not named but numbered: years, weights, durations, values. This is intentional. A ledger. A refusal to forget. A way to mark what history tried to erase.