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Ask the Artist: Questions for Tania Bruguera

Ask the Artist: Questions for Tania Bruguera

About the Video

Watch Cuban artist Tania Bruguera answer questions about her 2018-19 Tate Modern Hyundai Commission, submitted by the public. Tania Bruguera’s Hyundai Commission in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall asks museum visitors to experience a community-driven response to the global migration crisis. The acclaimed Cuban artist and activist has created a series of subtle interventions in and around Tate Modern. The work’s title is an ever-increasing figure: the number of people who migrated from one country to another last year added to the number of migrant deaths recorded so far this year – to indicate the sheer scale of mass migration and the risks involved. In the Turbine Hall is a large heat-sensitive floor. By using your body heat and working together with other visitors, you can reveal a hidden portrait of Yousef, a young man who left Syria to come to London. Meanwhile, a low-frequency sound fills the space with an unsettling energy. In a small room nearby, an organic compound in the air induces tears and provokes what the artist describes as ‘forced empathy’. Tania Bruguera engages with 'the role of emotions in politics'. Her main concerns are institutional power, borders and migration. Her work spans performance, events, action, film, installation, sculpture, writing and teaching alongside site-specific works. Often, she sets out to cause change through her work. She calls this approach ‘Arte Útil’ (useful art), in which people engage as users rather than spectators.

Ask the Artist | Questions for Tania Bruguera | TateShots. Video provided by Tate.

About the Program

The annual Hyundai Commission is a series of new, site-specific installations by international artists in Tate Modern’s iconic Turbine Hall. It is made possible by the long-term partnership between Tate and Hyundai Motor, now confirmed until 2036. The partnership, recently extended for another decade, was founded in 2014 with the longest initial commitment from a corporate partner in Tate’s history and encompasses support of both the Hyundai Commission and the Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational. Attracting over 19 million visitors since it began, the Hyundai Commission gives artists the chance to interpret the vast industrial space of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, ​​producing some of the most bold and memorable artworks of the past decade.

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