Mess, 2016
Installation with wood, rope, metal toggles, neon lights, dimensions variable

The motive for the project was the fact that in the past the Alaja Imaret served as a messhall (i.e. a food kitchen) for the poor. Instantly, my mind was filled with images, some recent others from the past, of people queued up waiting for food, work, or merely, their unknown fate. Bollards are used to demarcate and direct, and as such, suggest a human queue. It is important to note the common root “mess” in the words “mess”, “messhall” and “messiah.” By association, the path created by this demarcation runs parallel to the human passage from birth to death. Anxieties, fears, expectations, dreams, hopes — all these are hidden in a human tail, waiting. “[M]y people humble people who expect nothing”, as T.S. Eliot says in The Waste Land, it may be relevant.