Projection

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Whitehall

Embossed in cotton on to abaca, a type of leaf fibre originally first grown in the Philippines, Projection by Mona Hatoum is a world map that challenges common-held perceptions of global boundaries and fixed locations. Composed solely in white, the map is based on the Gall–Peters projection, a design initiated first by James Gall in the mid-19th century, then later re-adapted by Arno Peters in 1973. The mapping concept is that each of the world’s continents are represented in relative size to each other, and appear to be unusually distorted. 

Why did Hatoum base this work on the Gall-Peters Projection map? Widely acknowledged as a more accurate depiction of the world, it offers an alternative to earlier dominant European perspectives. Mapping is a consistent theme in Hatoum’s work, a universally read system that connects to personal and global issues of identity, home, belonging and exile. Reading Reflections on Exile, a 1984 essay by Palestinian scholar, Edward Said, had a profound effect on Hatoum. In his examination of exiles’ anxiety at being separated from their homeland, Said suggests that the nostalgia people feel for home, lingers even after they return – home is never the place that was left behind:

The exile knows that in a secular and contingent world, homes are always provisional. Borders and barriers, which enclose us within the safety of familiar territory, can also become prisons, and are often defended beyond reason or necessity. Exiles cross borders, break barriers of thought and experience.

Projection prompts recognition that maps are contingent and always subject to political will. Hatoum’s use of a more ‘truthful’ projection of the world, in contrast to Euro-centric versions, highlights how cultural colonialism, if not political colonialism, endures. Her work also implies a sense of a ‘projection’ of desires, particularly those concerned with nostalgia for home.

Projection was first shown in Hot Spot, Hatoum’s solo exhibition at White Cube, London, in 2006. Earlier works utilising maps include Map (1998), a floor-based world map consisting of glass marbles, that suggests the fragility and instability of nation states and highlights the arbitrary nature of political borders.

Mona Hatoum was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1952, to a Palestinian family. In 1975, she was granted British citizenship on account of her father’s employment at the British Embassy in Lebanon. She studied art at the Byam Shaw School of Art until 1979. The outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 prevented her return home, so she remained in London to continue her studies at the Slade School of Art (1979–81). Hatoum exhibits internationally, with past shows including participation at the Venice Biennale (1995 and 2005); and Biennale of Sydney (2006). She has had major solo exhibitions at Tate Modern (2016) and Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015). In 2017, she was awarded The 10th Hiroshima Art Prize, a triennial peace prize; followed by her first solo exhibition in Japan at Hiroshima City, MOCA. Hatoum was awarded the Julio González Prize in 2020; and celebrated with a major solo exhibition at the Institut Valencià d'Art Modern in 2021.

Places

Subjects

map (as Subject)

Materials & Techniques

abaca, cotton, mixed media (art object)

Artist

Mona Hatoum (1952 - )

Title

Projection

Edition

24/30

Date

2006

Medium

Cotton and abaca

Dimensions

height: 89.30 cm, width: 140.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from White Cube, December 2006

Inscription

bl: 24/30 br: Mona Hatoum / 2006 verso bl: RCIPP / 06-303

Provenance

White Cube, London

GAC number

18110