Installation, Installation

Structure, materials, space, plan, narrative, there has always been a close relationship between installation art and architecture. My final project at architecture school in the 1970s was a full-scale reconstruction of a kitchen murder scene to highlight issues connected with domestic violence. I was told I should be in art school, and I have often wondered what would have happened if I had followed that advice. This fantastic installation by the internationally renowned Brasilian multi-disciplinary artist Cildo Meireles is in the Inhotim open air art and sculpture park in Minas Gerais. I’ve been to see it several times drawn by its surreal and eerie architectural qualities. Like most of his work, it is both sensorily engaging and politically challenging. Housed in a large starkly lit room, reminiscent of a cell, Através, meaning literally Through, (1983-1989) is constructed using everyday materials associated with barriers, borders and frontiers. Barbed wire, shower curtains, venetian blinds, prison bars, timber and metal fencing, hanging sheets of glass, netting, steel mesh, handrails, are all meticulously arranged on a broken glass floor that crunches as you walk across it. In the middle there sits a curious imprisoned brain like ball of crunched white plastic. Through varying degrees of transparency, the assemblage challenges our perception of space, and for me at any rate, made me think about the material vocabulary of carceral architecture and the home security business. Flip flops strictly prohibited.