If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

Main content

Doris Salcedo's "Shibboleth"

This video brought to you by Tate.org.uk

"Every work of art is political because every work of art is breaking new ground," says Colombian artist Doris Salcedo. In this video, Salcedo explains why she decided to literally break new ground in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall by splitting the floor open with a long snaking crack in her piece Shibboleth. The word “shibboleth” refers to a word or custom that can be used to differentiate one group from another, and is therefore a token of power: the power to judge and reject with violence.

What might it mean to refer to such violence in an art museum? For Salcedo, the crack represents a history of racism, running parallel to the history of modernity. As Salcedo comes from a country riven by war, she has always seen conflict and the world from the perspective of the oppressed. The piece is not an attack, but rather a reminder, a question mark and a disruption of the status quo: she invites us to look down into it, and to confront discomforting truths about our world.

If you could create some kind of artistic distruption, what would it be? Would it be in a gallery, or on the street? Would it be confrontational or subtle?

To learn more about Doris Salcedo, Shibboleth, and other thought-provoking sculptures by the artist, click here.

.
Created by Tate.

Want to join the conversation?

  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user The Q
    I'm focusing on the scar left after the show closes: does anyone see this as The Healing Power of Art? But also the power of Art to forever recall a concept.
    (7 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
    • leaf green style avatar for user Camille @ Tate
      That's a great interpretation: not only does Shibboleth focus our attention on the opening or "wound" it creates, it also invites us to think about the scar it leaves behind, even after the completion of the show. Even if the crack is smoothed over perfectly, we're left with the memory of it -- which is something art is very good at doing, don't you think?
      (6 votes)
  • female robot grace style avatar for user Joaquin Roibal
    Very interesting--how did she create this crack? Did it damage the facility or structure? Was the building originally created with this crack in the foundation? I am very intrigued.
    (6 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • purple pi purple style avatar for user bestwickcheryl5
    I love the fact that the piece will remain under a new floor. I wonder what archaeologists will make of it in the future?
    (1 vote)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • purple pi purple style avatar for user Residuum
    Were visitors allowed to walk around this? I imagine people would want a close look at it. And if so, how did the museum keep people from hurting themselves on it?
    (1 vote)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
    • leaf green style avatar for user Camille @ Tate
      Yes, visitors were invited to walk around, peer into, and get a closer look at the piece as the artist intended. In order to ensure their safety and awareness, warning signs were posted around the gallery and staff members were on hand to monitor the exhibit and hand out leaflets.
      (4 votes)
  • leaf blue style avatar for user xina harding
    I'm failing to grasp what being refused at the border has to do with racial hatred, all countries have borders that they protect to stabilize the economy and welfare of the citizens
    (1 vote)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
    • aqualine tree style avatar for user David Alexander
      If you know the story behind the title "Shibboleth", you'll be better able to understand what the artist is getting at. The artificial lines on the map that designate borders between nations are just that, artificial. The boundaries that human beings of one race put between themselves and human beings of other races are equally artificial. We are one people, worldwide.
      (2 votes)
  • leaf green style avatar for user Sorin Hershcu
    I ask myself quite often when looking to a piece of art, special an abstract one, what's the importance of knowing the name and hearing the artist explanation.
    On this case, I can imagine myself, that visiting the museum without any information, my thought would fly to a completely different directions that the artist intend. For example to some earthquake events that happened during that time. Thinking about this question left confuse about all the modern art.
    (1 vote)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
    • aqualine tree style avatar for user David Alexander
      You make a good point, for as much as the "art" of a piece lies in the personal response of the viewer/participant, it is also in the "concept" of the artist/producer. With representational pieces, we have familiar clues to guide our understandings. Chinese art often goes further and is accompanied with poetic inscriptions which, as they interact with what is depicted, guide interpretations. Abstract pieces often need the kind of artist introduction, interpretation that we have here, or we go astray in the imaginations of our hearts.
      (1 vote)

Video transcript

"Shibboleth" is a piece that refers to dangers at crossing borders, or to being rejected in the moment of crossing borders. So, I am making a piece about people who had been exposed to extreme experience of racial hatred and subjected to human conditions in the first world. This piece is trying to introduce into the Turbine Hall another perspective, and the idea is that we all look down and maybe try to encounter the experience of these people that I've been referring to somewhere hidden within this deep division that is being generated in the Turbine Hall. The presence of the immigrant is always unwelcome ; the presence of the immigrant is seen as jeopardizing the culture of Europe. Europe is being seen as a homogeneous society, a democratic society that has learned, through centuries of development, has learned to resolve our issues through dialogue And, if that is the case, then where do we place these outbreaks of racial hatred ? So I think the society is not so homogeneous, and it's not so democratic. And there is some people that are experiencing that. So wherever the world, the Earth opened in the first world... There is mesh keeping people out or inside as you want to see it anyway keeping people away. So it's a piece that is both in the epicenter of catastrophe, and at the same time it is outside catastrophe. As you look in you can see, you can get the feeling of catastrophe in there. But nonetheless, outside is quite subtle, and I wanted a piece that intrudes in this space that is unwelcome like, like an immigrant that just intrudes without permission, just get seen slowly and all of a sudden it's there and it's a fairly big presence. I believe every work of art is political, because every work of art is breaking new ground. And it's in a way against the status quo. So every work of art - the nature of art is political. Abstract art, all of it is political, from my point of view. My work is because of where I come from, because I come from a country that is in the middle of a conflict very intense War, and I have always seen conflict, and I have always seen the world from the other perspective from the perspective of the defeated people, not from the perspective of the triumph. It's not... I don't see this piece as an attack I just think that it is a reminder. I want to bring into the consensus of : everything is well, we are all happy. I want to bring a question mark at this disruption not only in the space, but also in time. What is it before and what can happen after ? There is a quote by a philosopher, Theodor Adorno that I find amazing ; he said that We should all see the world from the perspective of the victim like Jewish people that were killed with the head down in the Middle ages So he wonders : what is the perspective of the person that is agonizing in this position ? So I just wanted to get that perspective. That is the world upside down, what it is like to see the world from down there. So once the show is over there will be... the piece will be sealed, the piece will remain under the floor and it will be sealed. So a permanent scar will always be in the Turbine Hall, as some memory, as a commemoration of all this life that we don't recognize, that for us are like ghost anyway. So in that in that way, the memory of the peace and the presence of the people that we don't want to look at The presence of this life that we don't want to acknowledge to have pretty much as in character, just a vague memory.