Seen through the work of eight leading artists from the Middle East, Axis of Light is a poignant and absorbing observation of the influences of conflict.
This complex piece is composed of a cylindrical space with padded walls where the viewer is invited to enter and see a video of Hatoum’s internal body. As such, she makes use of indispensable medical imaging technology (that without, the work would not exist). Hatoum uses the strategy of abjection in displaying the internal cavities in a way that has the effect of swallowing up the viewer. The abject destabilizes boundaries.
The tapes shows a blackhooded face - interspersed with slide projections of torture and brutality - scratching at her eyes with a sharp knife as we hear snips of news accounts of the eradication of the Palestinian people.
Four Black and Third World women artists, among them African American feminist poet Audre Lorde and Palestinian performance artist Mona Hatoum, speak forcefully through their art and writing.
Documentation of an hour-long performance in which the artist walks barefoot through the streets of Brixton, South London, with Dr. Martens boots tied to her ankles. The work was made in response to the Brixton's uprisings of 1981 and 1983 and in solidarity with Black communities.
Mona Hatoum (منى حاطوم) is a Palestinian artist born in 1952 to a Palestinian family living in exile in Beirut, Lebanon. From 1970 to 1972, she studied graphic design at the Beirut College for Women. She traveled to London, England in 1975 and was inexpectedly forced to stay long than planned due to the Lebanese Civil War. She attended the Byam Shaw School of Art, London, followed by the Slade School of Fine Art, London. She explores the relationship between politics and the individual through her art installations and sculptures.
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