We Came With Bridges mosaic collaboration

We Came with Bridges (2026)

Emma Willemse in collaboration with Spier Arts Trust and HUB Studios

Mosaic on steel frame

110 x 200 x 4cm

The original artwork that constitutes We Came with Bridges, was created by Emma Willemse in a laborious hand collage process, pasting together carefully selected cut-out snippets of images found in old National Geographic Magazines. 

Willemse says: “Although fascinating, the content of the National Geographic Magazine has always sat uncomfortable with me. I am asking questions about how knowledge is gained and produced in a post-colonial era, and how the imagery in these magazines reveal the one-sided gaze of the creators. By cutting and tearing the existing imagery used in these publications and re-contextualising it into new settings, I am recycling prevailing ways of viewing our world. It is an attempt to re-view pervasive assumptions, to re-use problematic perspectives and re-create new possibilities. We Came with Bridges tells the story of displacement due to colonialism.”

 The intention of transforming this image into a large-scale mosaic artwork was not to create a mere realistic depiction of the image, but rather to interpret it in the medium of stone fragments. A team of six artisans from HUB Studios in Cape Town, under the leadership of Heinrich Joemath, worked for a period of 4 months to complete the project. 

Artist statement

We came with vessels laden to the brim with things to come. A condensed inventory of the freight includes: fences, maps and parameters; dogma, doctrine and procedures; mines, minerals, drills and quarries; buildings, bridges and bureaucracy; urban sprawls layered below with ducts and drains.

All this and more were contained and imbedded in the cargo. All this, as well as the seed of the Eucalyptus tree which was planted inland, next to my future dwelling. The tree grew and prospered through the years, and later uprooted the floor of my home.