Currency of Plunder

Cian Dayrit’s artistic practice subverts the historical function of maps to mark the dominions of European powers in the New World. In his counter-cartography, Dayrit draws from the visual language of colonial maps, religious icons, and folkloric symbols to create textile works that engage with the dynamics of power, politics, and privilege in contemporary times.

In Currency of Plunder, (2019), Dayrit imagines a common medium of exchange that might have underwritten the colonial ambitions of European powers in the 15th-19th centuries. Popular slogans used to justify military might and empire-building such as Veni, Vidi, Vici  (I Came, I Saw, I Conquered) and “God, Glory, and Gold”, are embroidered on the textile work.  A three-headed monarch lies at the centre, directing the conquest of both land and sea which are symbolised by the fortress and the octopus.  On the right corners are the economic foundations of the colonial enterprise – the subjugation of the local people and the extraction of natural resources – while on the left corners are the symbols of the indigenous cultures suppressed during the colonial era.

Dayrit reminds us through the inclusion of factories, communication towers, warships, and other military vehicles that the structural inequities of colonialism have been perpetuated in the modern era, with power and authority concentrated on those who serve the state or those who control economic resources.  By mapping these complex connections, the artist asks audiences to consider alternative territories and new narratives of resistance.