Laying up Treasures on Earth Where Thieves Approach and Moth Destroy is born from, and is based on a very helpful and necessary idea from the Bible:

“Sell all that ye have and give alms, provide yourselves bags which was not old, a treasure in heaven that faileth not. Where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.”

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While working to sift meaning from this idea, I have used worn-looking 'food sacks' to represent "bags which wax not old."
I have also shaped them to be exactly like the 'offertory collection bags' used in catholic churches in cities (in Nigeria) today [in 2006].

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The employment of this kind of used bag -to illustrate ‘incorruptible treasure that faileth not’, is very symbolic. This is to draw out an irony and bring to our attention, the farce that the quote/expression has perhaps become.

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Through this irony, I posit that humans have possibly derailed from what we ought to be doing - based on this instruction in question; not only as it concerns almsgiving and charity (love and care for others); but we might also have shifted based on the ways that we approach many other things, as could be seen even in our daily living.

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This work has a dual meaning. Offertory collection bags are usually hand-held or monitored by 'trusted' persons who can be recognised by their attire - they wear a type of stole- [think of... “where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth”].

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In contrast, the 'Bags' that make up this work, stand unsupervised. where the individuals responsible for them have 'hung up their badges', leaving their charge unmonitored. Sometimes too, someone is supervising but decides to keep a blind eye.

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These bags also have holes in them, further making provision, for 'putting in' (giving), and for 'taking out' (collecting)- simultaneously. This is not supposed to be the case, and these are the few points to this work.
Oftentimes, public funds are mismanaged. Who, then, is to be trusted? To whom shall we complain as things spiral to deeper than the deep end?

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The gold colour of the stoles worn by the wardens is significant.
Gold is worn to celebrate Mass only on the Feast days of the Catholic Church.

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The multiple numbers of bags and the pole are also symbolic. Poles have been used in the work to hold the bags together and in place. This signifies 'connection', suggesting that this problem of distrust occurs with many of the purses in many places in the larger and universal society, all of which are also connected; and every man is affected, irrespective of their location. This can result in a chain of mistrust and insecurity. We can also reverse this to something joyful and beneficial to all of us.

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'Laying Up Treasure... nudges and encourages us to give alms and aid to those in need, instead of feasting too much on ourselves. It will be for us ‘…a treasure in heaven that faileth not…’
We can choose goodness. Let us choose to multiply joy!

This is an important earlier days work from me when I had just begun to experiment with 'Bag' as medium and idea for art.