From the Series
First Published in
If Queen Anne of England was alive today there’s a good chance she’d have plenty to say about Ernst van der Val’s ball&claw series. The series forms part of Van der Val’s queer colony project, which focuses on taking objects of cultural significance in South Africa, and through transgression and playful deconstruction, re-imagine the complex nature of our colonial heritage. Inspired by the experience of visiting his grandparents as a young boy, where he saw the ball-and-claw design a lot, Van der Val says: “Experiencing the world at knee-level, the shape of these furniture legs made a large impression on me.”