“The uncanny space of Impenetrable is a jolt, a warning against inhabiting that cube, against accepting the pervasive savagery of this volatile world. The work invites us to regard, from a lucid distance, the spaces humanity has created for itself, to consider the choice of refusing to enter into a catastrophic state of affairs.”

Publication: “Mona Hatoum: Uncanny Space,” . Magazine, National Gallery of Canada (March 2024).

Keywords: art, contemporary, surrealism, conceptual, artist, Mona Hatoum, installation, sculpture, barbed, wires, space, environment, architecture, monument, structure, cube, volume, violence, borders, divisions, war, conflict, colonization, occupation, power, politics, oppression, human, body, somatic, physical, bodily, harm, uncanny, psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Palestine, Arab, world, Southwest Asia, North Africa, National Gallery of Canada, NGC, Ottawa, Canada

Image: Mona Hatoum, Markus Elblaus, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art