Seattle Art Fair features reclaimed apartheid-era police vehicle

SPOEK-1, a reclaimed apartheid-era police vehicle adorned by 70 million colorful beads by South African artist Ralph Ziman, is unveiled Tuesday morning at Lumen Field prior to the Seattle Art Fair in Seattle

The CASSPIR Project

The centerpiece of the exhibit is a hulking Casspir military vehicle. Ziman has reclaimed the eleven-ton, twenty-two-foot-long and nine-foot-high four-wheeled monster into a striking, sparkling "Africanized" work of art, entitled SPOEK 1. Enveloping its every surface with millions of brightly-colored panels of glass beads, Ziman and his team transmuted the Casspir from armored vehicle to adorned sculpture, effectively indigenizing the reviled symbol of tyranny. The dazzlingly intricate beadwork and traditional patterns, courtesy of local artisans from Zimbabwe and the Mpumalanga province in South Africa, are full of energy and enthusiasm--the spirited reds, yellows and greens representative of a vibrant optimism which had come into view after a dark past of systemic discrimination and segregation. Developed in South Africa in the 1970s, the Casspir was originally conceived as a military vehicle. A weapon of terror during the apartheid-era, the armored Casspir was extensively used against civilian populations. Widely despised and feared, it soon became synonymous with violence, police intimidation and institutional oppression. “I wanted to take what was the ultimate symbol of apartheid,” artist Ralph Ziman says, “and turn it into something that is African and beautiful.”