PROTECTION
by SAMBA
8th Nov 2025 – 30th Nov 2025
This is the second chapter from Samba’s Series, PRICARIOUS. PRECARIOUS series, a journey that questions our feelings and perceptions in a world shadowed by threat of nuclear destruction.
PROTECION was first inspired by the act Japanese woman invited a thousand people to stich red knots on a belt, each knot a silent prayer to protect a loved one from bullet at war. In Japan, number one thousand and the colour of red have special spiritual power. This exhibition is a constellation of the following works.
LOVE – Miria Miria
Love brings together three expressions of care and fragility.
The paintings are inspired by Senninbari, a thousand red French knots made by Japanese women during the war. Each painted dot differs from the next, added patiently one by one in quiet acts of care.
The red assemblages extend this sentiment into three dimensions: found red unwanted domestic objects balanced delicately along the wall, as if pushed to the edge of survival, bridging love’s quiet persistence with the instability of our social and political realities.
The participatory performance serves as a quiet reminder of the peace we often take for granted. It re-enacts the wartime act of Japanese women cutting their hand-stitched traditional garments in half to create work clothes. The performers’ gesture of offering head coverings become another expression of care, solidarity, and shared resilience within the community.
RED SHELTER – Debbie Monks
This installation is a response to two principles. Firstly, the colour red in Japan symbolises good luck, happiness, strength, and protection.
Secondly, according to Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, the most fundamental are physiological, (air, water, food and sleep), and safety needs, (security, stability and shelter). These needs must be met before one can focus upon higher levels of need, such as love and belonging.
Is it a cocoon, a rock crevice, a tree hollow, a body cavity?
I invite you to take shelter within.
SAFE GUARD – Lynda Marshall
At its centre lies the domestic — a table — a familiar structure that evokes home, shelter and exposure. It is a site of gathering and refuge, yet in moments of crisis, it becomes a shield of last resort.
Above and within this form appears a cross: graphically minimal, an intersection of two simple lines. One of the most potent symbols in Western culture, the cross speaks of sacrifice, grief, and love. It reaches beyond its religious origins to shape our political and cultural landscapes, appearing on national flags — emblems of the very powers that often generate the need for protection.
In this work, protection is not presented as strength, but as care, as hope, as endurance. It is a meditation on vulnerability — and on the quiet, persistent human desire to safeguard life, even when safety cannot be assured.