Map, 1999

Born in Lebanon to a Palestinian family, Mona Hatoum was forced into exile in London due to the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. Informed by her experiences of conflict and displacement, Hatoum’s work explores sociocultural and geopolitical issues including immigration and identity, the conditions of exile, and the contestation of national borders and surveillance of bodies within them. Map is a floor installation featuring hundreds of glass marbles arranged according to a hand-drawn outline of a world map. Part cartographic exercise, part poetic rumination, this work depicts a nationless perspective of the world. Each delicately placed marble in this shimmering, slippery surface is extremely vulnerable, mirroring the precarious social and political conditions of the 21st century.