Forty Nations (No Ships) is in a railway arch and the artist won’t add the ships
Harper-Thames on Shoreditch: The Hormuz Zoom Call Has Been Turned Into an Art Installation
A railway arch in Bethnal Green is hosting an art installation called Forty Nations (No Ships). It is a room set up as a Zoom call, with forty chairs facing forty screens, each showing a loop of a government representative looking serious. None of the screens show ships. The artist describes himself as interested in the theatre of futile authority. The artist said: when you make a Zoom call physical, you see immediately what’s missing. In the digital version the absence of ships is invisible. In the room, the absence of ships is the room. I wrote this down. It is the best thing anyone has said to me about the Hormuz situation and it was said in a railway arch while a loop of a stern diplomat played on screen forty.
The Ships Question, Artistically
I asked what the ships would look like if he added them. He said: I don’t think I should. The absence is the work. I asked if the absence was also the foreign policy. He said: I don’t make that claim. The viewer can. I said I was making the claim in print. He said: that’s your room. I cover Shoreditch because it is where the art response to current events happens fastest. The London Prat has the political context. The artist has the chairs. The installation is on until the end of the month.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/bold-plan-to-reopen-the-strait-of-hormuz/
