Assembly II, 2022         
Video Installation        

Culminating from the artist’s residency at ZK/U Berlin (Centre for Arts and Urbanistics) were two new works responding to the site in its state of transformation. A film installation, Assembly II introduces questions around global labour practices, brought into conversation with the construction site of ZKU. In the process of making this work, for example, construction was halted as a result of shifting geopolitical relations. Material such as steel, that would ordinarily be sourced from Ukraine, was unable to make its journey to Berlin as a consequence of Russia’s invasion. This is one of many stories that can be told through the artist’s study of materials, processes, and site. 

Installed in and amongst the construction site, Smits created an environment for the film installation that utilized the objects and materials used for the construction. A piece of tarp was stretched across a metal fence to create a screen for the projected film. Beyond the film itself, flood lights were placed in various areas drawing parallels between the footage of the film with the material surroundings and status of the site itself. The film itself presents a collage of found footage collected by the artist over the past year, usually distributed as 15 second clips on social media. The clips come to overlap, and intertwine different geographies, modes of production, extraction, labour conditions, and techniques.

Together, Assembly I and Assembly II express the inherent global-ness of the local, with the materials used at ZKU deriving from fabrication sites, construction processes, and labour forces across the world.