Cecilia Vicuña - Brain Forest Quipu
Viewing the latest Turbine Hall installation is an uncomfortable experience. Two works are so tall and slender you’ll have to seriously crane your neck, practically falling over backwards in order to see and study them. Not a position your body wants to be in for very long, leaving you with two choices: Passively lay beneath one while you look up and it overwhelms you; Or walk to the other end of the hall and gaze safely from afar, but too far removed to appreciate the detail. It’s an unintentionally apt metaphor for how humans most frequently deal with the issues this work is meant to address: climate change, deforestation and violence against indigenous peoples.
Vicuña (b. 1948) is a Chilean poet, artist and activist who spent many years studying in London while exiled. She’s been making quipo works for years and didn’t hesitate to go larger than life when given the opportunity. For five weeks she turned the Turbine Hall into a living workshop (Image 8), rolling about in a wheelchair to variously direct the installation team, or inspect the items that were to be woven into the threads, which had been mudlarked from the Thames by local Latin American women. Hidden speakers have also been woven into the work, and will cycle through 16 hours of ambient sounds, spoken word and traditional indigenous music.
It’s a beautiful but bold commission for Tate and Hyundai, who have recently, and understandably, focussed on wow-factor installations that brought feet through the doors in a post-COVID world. As it’s only just opened, it’s still unclear whether the work itself will prompt an investigation into it’s meaning, or hover like a lonely ghost. At the press preview someone quietly commented “I thought they were going to do something”, reinforcing the challenge to engage a public that’s become conditioned to queueing to put stickers on things or gaze at the spectacle of flying AI-amoeba. What is clear is that I don’t expect many to stop and watch the subtitled documentaries that Tate has carefully hidden under the stairs.
At Tate Modern until 16 Apr 2023
Visit the Cecilia Vicuña Wikipedia page for more information about the artist.