Tifinagh Invasion



Tifinagh Invasion
Plexiglass alphapets, Ink on cards, Plastic bags 2019

Tifinagh is the ancient (Libyc) african script, It is attested from the 2nd millennium BC to the present time.

The use of script came to disappear from official use during the Arab-Islamic conquest, and later in present times through the political repression by the different governments in the region and colonial movements.

The language itself is widely spoken across the indiginous Tamazight and Tuareg’s in the region, In Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Tunis, Egypt (siwa), Niger and Mali, and the canary islands; traces of the script are found across various rock art locations and world heritage sites in the Sahara.

Today, the Neo-Tifinagh (a recent standard version of the script which came to use in the 20th century) is written from left to right, while ancient inscriptions showed versions from right to left, bottom to top and top to bottom.

Barnosa places the ancient letters she natively uses in her daily brain function inside a plastic bag, same as the one used in collecting crime evidence, or for selling commodities, questioning both preservation and isolation, one as a generational tools for civilisation to survive, and one as a dehumanization tool by the dominating forces.