Nations

"Nations is an installation of 192 treadle sewing machines, hand-painted flags of country members of the United Nations, and multiples of thread [...].

The treadle sewing machines are connected by a web of cottons threading throughout the installation from spool to bobbin winder, from wheel to the eye of a needle. [...] Each spool holds a reel of coloured cotton, and under the foot of each machine a national flag is held as if being worked on. The ordered lines of machinery draw a scene of a busy working sweatshop.

Threads and remnants of cloth strewn over the floor form barriers to entry to the machines. As a viewer we are called to attend to our own relationship to mechanised labour serving global markets and to our own participation in the fabrication of national identity."

http://www.iniva.org/exhibitions_projects/2009/nations/introduction

NS Harsha: Nations
18.9. - 21.11.2009
INIVA
Rivington Place, London EC2A 3BA