Lyndl Hall’s Stretchers, Headers & Footnotes examines the role of the red brick building in colonial expansion.
Hall’s research is based on two case studies: the Clayburn/Kilgard brickworks in the Fraser Valley, and the City Hall in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, which is considered the largest red brick building in the southern hemisphere. These disparate sites mirror the establishment of British rule through industry, bureaucracy, and architecture. Brick is both a literal and figurative building block for an empire fashioned out of the clay of foreign lands. The exhibition consists of a series of drawings, a book work, and installation elements that consider the materials that document and exemplify the processes of colonization. Hall’s works draw heavily on the Archives of the Reach Gallery Museum as well as the Pietermaritzburg Archives.
