Atelier Programme | Mona Hatoum: Roadworks Limited Screening
Locations
Winsing Art Place (1/F. 6, Lane 10, Lane 180, Section 6, Minquan East Road, Neihu District, Taipei City)
Fees
Free Admission
Ages
Unrestricted
Introduction
Mona Hatoum became widely recognized in the mid-1980s for her early video and performance works, in which she used her body as a medium to address issues of surveillance and social control. During Taipei Dangdai Art Fair, Winsing Art Place will present a screening of Hatoum’s 1985 performance Roadworks, staged on the streets of Brixton in South London.
In the piece, the artist walks barefoot down the street, dragging a pair of heavy boots tied to her ankles with their own laces. The Brixton area had previously been the site of intense racial unrest, and police presence there was especially heightened. The boots Hatoum chose carry symbolic weight—Dr. Martens were traditionally worn by British police officers but had also become associated with the skinhead movement and racially motivated violence. Hatoum’s act suggests a body impeded by the "boots of the state," with the shoes following her vulnerable steps like a continuous, threatening presence—or a heavy shadow.
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