Air

Mona Hatoum Born 1952, Beirut, Lebanon Lives and works in London, United Kingdom So often in human history, models of the globe have suggested travel, freedom, potential and discovery. Spin the planet on its tilting axis and we can see where our finger might land — dream of other places, people and customs, as well as the wealth and resources that have propelled exploration and conflict throughout human history. Mona Hatoum’s large-scale globe Hot Spot 2006 maps the continents in startling red neon, casting viewers in an emergency-red glow. Hot Spot is at once a map and model of the Earth: an underlying structure laid bare; an energy system; and a stainless-steel cage measuring just over two metres in circumference. It is of sufficient scale for us to imagine ourselves locked inside the structure, perhaps able to stretch our arms within this circular cell, but little more movement would be possible. Hatoum’s choice of title pointedly complicates our understanding of a ‘hot spot’ as a distant conflict zone that is somehow ‘other’ or isolated. By extending a sense of heat across the entire globe, the artist makes it clear that we all have a place within the larger web of systems and geopolitical ambitions driving conflict. Our whole planet is in fact a hot spot, constantly redefined by the struggle for power: whether through suffering, war, disease, social unrest or structural inequity. Mona Hatoum / Hot Spot (detail) 2006 135 Burn