Mona Hatoum: Baluchi (burgundy)(2016)

Overview

Born into a Palestinian family in Beirut in 1952, Hatoum relocated to Europe in 1975 when the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon during a visit to London unexpectedly prevented her return. A practicing artist since the 1970s, Hatoum works with a wide and often unexpected range of materials and mediums to explore issues that often have conflict at their core.

Hatoum uses familiar domestic objects and transforms them into uncanny, often painfully fragile works, whose visual appeal is exceeded by their deep conceptual, political and social meanings. In her artwork Baluchi (burgundy) (2016), a carpet appears in a state of disintegration with worn-out parts in the shape of the ‘Peters Projection’ world map which exists in opposition to Western-centric maps, arguably depicting a more accurate distribution of land mass and proportions. The geographical outline creates an impression that is left for the viewer to interpret.