Dorob (NOT) 4Sale was an anonymous, site-specific artistic intervention by Imke Rust that critically addressed the increasing commodification of protected landscapes, focusing on Dorob National Park as a concrete case within broader global processes of resource extraction and privatization.

Employing strategies of institutional mimicry and irony, the artist installed fifteen fictitious real-estate signs along the main road traversing the park. Mimicking the visual language of commercial land advertising, the signs initially suggest the availability of land for sale. Upon closer inspection, however, they reveal counter-messages that explicitly reject the sale of land and instead draw attention to the vulnerability of national parks and oceans to mining and industrial exploitation. Each sign included a website address and a mobile phone number, extending the intervention beyond the physical site.

The project was accompanied by a dedicated website that provided contextual information on the issue, as well as an automated answering-machine message that responded to callers with an ironic refusal, reinforcing the conceptual premise that the land is not for sale. Through this layered structure, the work operated simultaneously in public space, digital space, and mediated communication.

Dorob (NOT) 4Sale generated local media coverage, prompted numerous phone calls from the public, and recorded over 400 website visits by March 2013, indicating the project’s capacity to engage audiences beyond the immediate site and to stimulate public reflection on land use, ownership, and environmental responsibility.

About:

Temporary installation of 15 signs at 5 different locations along the C34 road in the Dorob National Park, Namibia.

Dimensions of Signs: 60 x 80cm
Correx Board, digital prints, spray paint, iron poles & cable binders
11 – 29 January 2013

Permanent webpage:  www.dorob4sale.wordpress.com and life cellular phone number with prerecorded answering message (The number was discontinued after one year).