"United States of Attica," by Faith Ringgold. 1972.
‘Spolia’ was the name medieval scholars gave to a Roman practice of using fragments and stolen materials in the construction of new buildings. The term comes from the Latin ‘spolium,’ spoils of war – “violent removal from a violated source.” The practice of spolia, then, was also a kind of effacement of history: the appropriation and use of a spoliated object (a cornice, a statue, a pillar) in a new building effectively erased not only the moral implications of conquest but even the memory of the object’s former life-world.
What is it like to ‘spoliate’ consciously, as a critique of or play on the practice? Is it possible to transform spoils into a form of witness, a call to action? What is ours to remember, and to ‘re-member’? What is ours to create with, and how? Who built our houses, with and by what? Who pays the price? This can be considered literally (who processed the chicken you ate today, and how did it get to you) and/or in figurative, psychic, political terms, etc.
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