Martin Toloku

Martin Toloku is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice evolved over the years from carving to installation, performance, video work, studio practice and collaboration with animals, specifically termites and aquatic species. He is fascinated about the deterioration of materials, memories they inhabit and seeks to explore spontaneity as revolutionary aesthetics, experimental inquiries while investigating decay in relation to time, space, life and death. He is a board member of perfocraZe International Artist Residency (pIAR) in Kumasi , Ghana and Alumni of Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam/The Netherland.

Decay is the central theme of Martin Tolokus practice, an investigation and research into the history behind dead/rotten woods and other objects within their environment, archival of obscured moments. He become fascinated about the deteriorating and the materiality as processes behind this mystery. Collaborating sometimes with living organisms specifically termites, a studio ritual performed to confront the complexity of our shared environment with other living creatures. Toloku is very curious about trapped memories and histories hidden in objects which are raw reflections of the environment, an evidence of time, space and history. Searching for his own language and definition of death and life from our human encounter with space both physical and spiritual. Allowing his concept to guide him through an anthropological investigation with a multidisciplinary approach. In performance he employed himself as a material object to confront and challenge the mortality of all living beings and my own death phobia.