Doris Salcedo

Doris Salcedo‘s dedicated exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey, London, features the large-scale installation Palimpsest (2013−17) and a new series of sculptures entitled Tabula Rasa (2018), in which the artist explores once more the theme of mourning.

The installation deals with the subject of Europe’s migrant crisis and the tragedy of those who fled from Africa or the Middle East over the past 20 years and drowned in the Mediterranean or Adriatic attempting to cross into Europe. It consists of a rectangular shape of stone slabs, positioned on the floor of the entire gallery space, on which the names of 190 victims temporarily and intermittently appear. “Tabula Rasa” features five new sculptures, exploring the theme of sexual violence and the loss of identity and sense of fragmentation that follows these traumas. The objects are domestic wooden tables which underwent to brutal actions of destruction and reconstruction.