Alex Seton’s Cargo, Hand-Carved Marble Bales With A Political Connotation

The new exhibition by Australian artist Alex Seton is titled ‘Cargo’, featuring marble installation sculptures that depict compressed bales of clothing in asymmetric stainless steel plates. The installation speaks to our own complicity in the clothing industry and its metaphoric representation of the economic systems that structure our world.

Seton uses his own clothes to create a series of tightly compressed soft clothing bales. The piles of fabric are rendered in marble and stacked upon each other to look like building blocks. They are then arranged in square chiral patterns, alternating in layers on each palate. The installation aims to show how much impact one person’s collection of clothing has, both on a personal and political level. “I’m interested in the identities we have, the clothing we’ve worn throughout our lives and the many different roles we’ve worn within those clothes”, explains Seton. He is also fascinated by the idea of journey. “We have all lived many different lives”, he continues, “And we are all hoping to evolve and change into something better”. Each compressed bale works as an art piece to evoke a tangled mass of humanity; the condensing of human needs and social concerns, as well as the broader environments and cultures that connect us all.

All images © Alex Seton