s n i f f e r

in 1990 the united nations security council imposed sanctions against iraq with strict financial and trade embargoes, due to their invasion of kuwait and possibility of harbouring weapons of mass destruction. they included: baby food, nail polish, bandages, paper, sanitary pads & shampoo as well as x-ray equipment, epilepsy medication & surgical instruments. the sanctions regime ran till 2003 when there began to be growing international concern over the long term harms caused to civilians.

s n i f f e r treated these banned items as possible ingredients for making a ‘weapon of mass destruction’.
having installed a 4 x 8m satellite floor map of the perth metro area in our residency space, we mapped and plotted the locations and purchases of over 70 contra-banned items which had been forbidden to enter iraq over the past 12 yrs.

one sample of each item were sniffed out on the streets of perth by the pvi team clothed in custom made protective biochemical suits. items were safely transported to fremantle and suspended directly above their locations on the map.

for a period of 7 days, pvi carried out a series of targeted hits on suspicious locations and known harborers of these potentially ‘deadly’ ingredients, including the following weapons suppliers:
> target, k-mart, toys ‘r’ us maurice meade hairdressers, the $2 store and busy bee chemists

all city manoeuvres were audio and video recorded then played back in the exhibition space. as a potentially deadly environment, pvi sealed the exhibit in an air tight room, slicing open one entrance into the environment for gallery visitors.