Mona Hatoum

born 1952 in Lebanon,
lives and works in London.

In the 1980s, she worked mainly with political performances with a heavy focus on the body. Since the 1990s, her practice has gravitated towards installations that often include objects of everyday use; the artist gives these objects new functions and forms.

“Measures of Distance” is a record of an intimate conversation between a mother and a daughter who are in remote locations. The work was taken by Mona Hatoum during her visit to Lebanon; it shows her mother taking a shower. Resembling a veil that restricts access to the voyeuristic pleasure of looking at a naked body, letters from the mother to the daughter written in Arabic are superimposed on the photos, while Hatoum’s voice interprets them into English.

The work is a story about longing and the distance that separates two closely related women who have been separated by the civil war that rages in the country. It is also a record of an intimate relationship between a mother and her daughter – a relationship in which the blueprints of femininity and female sexuality are handed down – as well as the related fears and joys.

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