Research object 03_ Mona Hatoum

I’ve never known Mona Hatoum until an exhibition in Tate modern last week. I visited her exhibition because I want to establish a discourse on Eastern ideology between my audiences and me not just in graphic design. Therefore, I drew my attentions to other art’s areas.

Actually, I did not understand every work completely and thought that it may bring nothing in my project. However, after researching Hatoum much more, attractions and inspirations were obvious.

· An interactive installation

Her works often refer to policy, feminism, or body performance. (Andri, 2016) However, my attractive part is to see how she bring a interactive communication with viewers by her installation works.

‘In the early performance work I was in a sense demonstrating or delivering a message to the viewer. With the installation work, I wanted to implicate the viewer in a phenomenological situation where the experience is more physical and direct. I wanted the visual aspect of the work to engage the viewer in a physical, sensual, maybe even emotional way; the associations and search for meaning come after that.’ (Interview by BOMB Magazine, 1998)

In the exhibition, ’Light sentence’, made in 1992, was an installation consisting of three rows of wire mesh lockers surrounding a light bulb that reflect the shadows on the wall. When I stood in front of the main entrance, I just saw a large cage but nothing inside. The title mentioned the sentence but no one be punished there until I looked closure. Suddenly, I realized that I was the prisoner who was trapped by light. I seemed to be restricted in the space when I was a part of this work.

By Desa Philippi’s description in book ‘Mona Hatoum’, every viewer plays two roles in an outsider that watch a captive and an insider that is a captive oneself-object as well as subject in a life sentence.(Arnolfini, 1993)

‘Life sentence’ was not the only installation in this show but the most influential one for me. I once again experienced how the interactive method is powerful in art.

Reference_

1. Andri, P. (2016) Tate Modern. Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/who-is-mona-hatoum [Accessed 11 August 2016].

2. Janine, A. (1998) BOMB Magazine. Available from: http://bombmagazine.org/article/2130/mona-hatoum [Accessed 11 August 2016].

3. Arnolfini (1993) Mona Hatoum. Bristol: Arnolfini.

Picture_

1. Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/who-is-mona-hatoum [Accessed 11 August 2016].