'hanging garden' by mona hatoum

jute bags piled high

mona hatoum is a lebanese-born artist who is now living and working in london. her work explores issues of fear, fascination and the body, expressed through performance, video, installations and photography. her ‘hanging garden’ consists of 770 jute sacks, stacked to head level. all together, they form a 10 meter long wall, which looks much like the sandbag barricades used as defense from enemy gunfire during battle and other war zones such as checkpoints and border crossings. despite the associations we have with the image of these barricades, the sacks are filled with seeds that sprout, greening the wall and expressing more of an image of growth and prosperity. the piece deals with the friction between notions of home, security, warmth and their opposites.

the seeds inside the sacks of the ‘hanging garden’ sprouting

the sacks create a barricade within a public space all images © mona hatoum

galerie chantal crousel: http://www.crousel.com — via kulture flash