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Mona Hatoum

Projection (Cotton), 2006

Description

Maker

  • Mona Hatoum, b. 1952, Palestinian

Title

Projection (Cotton)

Year

2006

Medium

Watermarked cotton paper

Materials/Techniques

Supports

  • cotton paper

Dimensions

Sheet: 90.2 x 141 cm (35 x 55 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

gallery label on verso reads "edition of 6. Rutgers Impression 1 of 2" Lower left in graphte "RI 1/2" and lower right "Mona Hatoum 2006"

Identification

Edition

Edition of 6. Rutgers Impression 1/2.

Type

  • Works on Paper,
  • Prints

Credit

Richard Brown Baker Fund for Contemporary British Art

Object Number

2011.2

About

Born in Beirut to a Palestinian family and now living in London, Mona Hatoum is familiar with changing definitions and perceptions of borders, both national and
cultural. In this piece she manipulates cotton rag pulp into a handmade paper depicting the Gall-Peters projection of the world, a presentation that, in contrast to maps drawn from a Eurocentric perspective, shows the world’s land masses in true proportion to the areas they occupy.

Hatoum’s use of cotton fiber here is particularly apt, given the material’s global history of cultivation and trade. Grown in the Indus Valley (present-day Pakistan),
Egypt, and the Americas for thousands of years, cotton was virtually unknown in Europe until 800 CE, when it was introduced by Arab traders.

Edition of 6. Rutgers Impression 1/2.

gallery label on verso reads "edition of 6. Rutgers Impression 1 of 2" Lower left in graphte "RI 1/2" and lower right "Mona Hatoum 2006"

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Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Made in the UK

September 23, 2011 - January 8, 2012

Hatoum’s image is based on the controversial Peters projection of the world which attempts to present land masses in true proportion to the area they occupy. (Every translation of the globe to a flat map contains distortions.) Notable for calling attention to the social implications of mapmaking, it suited Hatoum who as a child of Palestinians living in exile is acutely aware of the politics of borders. In her piece, land masses are fissures in the handmade paper drawn by the map-shaped watermark in a papermaking mold. As the outcome cannot be precisely controlled when the mold is dipped into the vat of liquid paper pulp, the process is an apt metaphor for the instability of borders.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Projection (Cotton) with the accession number of 2011.2. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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