ALEXANDER LEE

Nō taua tīruvi ra (A cause du Déluge - Because of the Flood, 2019) is executed in acrylic paint on the largest wall of the CAC (Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius). Lee writes: ‘These are colours from Polynesia. They travelled to this side of the world, already loaded with its own history. What lurks in the shadows here? How do we respond to the feelings colours stir in us and the meanings assigned to them by states: black flag, yellow peril, blue state, Red Army, colour blocks, Eastern Bloc. Colours become borders, shielding one from being tainted by another: pure blood, half-blood, bad blood.’ The flood may be more water than we can handle (in every country with a coastline), or a specific event like the crumbling of the cement cap over ‘temporary’ nuclear waste (whether built by the US in the Marshall Islands or by France in Moruroa), or the still-looming global spectacle of all-out nuclear annihilation.