Mona Hatoum

Born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1952, later emigrated to London in 1975. Trained at both the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Slade School of Art between the years 1975 and 1981. In 1995 she was nominated for the Turner Prize for her exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and for her show at the White Cube.

In the early 1980s Hatoum began her artistic career with performance pieces, though later moving from 'live' work to more mechanical installations, involving video, light, and sound. While, mostly focusing on confrontational themes such as violence, oppression and voyeurism, she has often made powerful references to the vulnerability, and resistance, of our human bodies. During a trip to London in 1975 civil war broke out in Lebanon. Forced to into exile, with the threat of death in her home nation she decided to stay. With this shadow on her shoulders her early works can be seen as a metaphor for eternal conflict and resistance.