The Implications of Emotion: Mona Hatoum’s 35-Year Retrospective at Tate Modern
Mona Hatoum’s work demands to be felt - still images just aren't enough. Visitors to the Tate Modern’s survey of her work - the first major UK exhibition of a career spanning 35 years - will hear the first installation before they see it. So Much I Want to Say consists of a series of close-ups of Hatoum's face, helplessly gagged by a pair of hands, as her voice repeats the six titular words on a loop. Later on, a recording of Hatoum quietly reading out letters from her mother competes with the harsh, threatening sound of electricity running through household objects and illuminating bulbs in the next room. This contradiction is typical of Hatoum's work, which is bold, intimate and astonishing.
Born in Beirut to a Palestinian family in 1952, Hatoum settled in Britain in 1975 following the outbreak of war in Lebanon. Using a variety of materials and media, her work explores themes of confrontation, violence, displacement, oppression and loss – creating installations which cannot fail to elicit a response from the viewer.
How does it feel to have such a large survey of your work back in the city where you first studied art?
I was stranded in England because of the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon in 1975 so I decided to study art in London and it subsequently became my home. It is wonderful to have a major survey of my work at the Tate Modern. It always means a lot more to get this kind of recognition in one’s hometown.
The rest of this feature - by Kirsty Morris Welsh - can be accessed in After Nyne 10. Available from the After Nyne Store priced at £8.99 plus P&P or from selected retailers.
