MOSAIC (n – a picture or design composed of small coloured pieces or tiles; adj – of or pertaining to Moses or the laws and principles attributed to him)
The tiles for this mosaic are formed from cut up pieces of credit card. They have been arranged on a sheet of white plastic and set in resin. 459 tiles have been used. Central to the design of the mosaic is the spelling out of EXODUS 22 : 25. This is a chapter and verse reference from the Book of Exodus from the Old Testament. The King James Bible quotes this verse as follows:
“If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.”
Mosaic is about the art of coping and not coping. It’s about the art of staying afloat. It’s about making something beautiful out of something distressing. Mosaic is about debt.
Debt is about rearranging the pieces each month to make them fit. It’s about Saturday morning arguments and private despair. It’s about living with a noose around your neck, and the remorse for having placed it there.
Mosaic is about celebrating the individual component stories that make up crises and headlines. It’s about engaging with your own experience and doing justice to it against a backdrop of casual observers. It’s about people talking about stuff they don’t know. It’s about not devaluing the currency. It is about understanding the value of things, not the price. Mosaic is about debt.
Debt is about watching floodwater approach your doorstep. It’s about the difference £2.49 will make. It’s about your bad choices preventing you from making better choices. It is about wishing.
Mosaic is about the debt industry and about systems that profit out of human misery. Its about understanding our own role in these systems, what we do to support them, how we benefit out of them, and the price that we pay for our involvement. Mosaic is about the dangers of living off borrowed resources, and about hitting the credit limit. It’s about the future, the shattered state of things, and designing something new. Mosaic is about debt.
Debt is about always playing catch up. It’s about kicking a man when he’s down. It’s about taking it out on the vulnerable. It’s about higher premiums for those who can least afford them.
Mosaic is about wealth and profit and how money is made. It is about making the cards pay for themselves, about creating actual from conceptual. It is about the history behind lending money at interest, and the flexibility which moral codes are treated with when it suits. Mosaic is about debt.
Mosaic is available for purchase by galleries or art collectors. We don’t know how much it costs but are open to offers. If you would like to have a chat about buying it, please contact colonpress@hotmail.com