Roadworks

This video documents a performance that Hatoum made in Brixton, South London in 1985, where she walked barefoot through the streets, dragging a pair of large boots attached to her ankles by their laces. Brixton is an area of London that had previously witnessed violent race riots, therefore police presence was very prominent in the area. The boots that Hatoum chose to use were very particular: ‘Dr. Martens’, which have been traditionally worn by the British police, but were also adopted, at the time, by the skinhead movement that is commonly associated with racist violence. Hatoum’s movement was encumbered by the boots that followed her vulnerable steps like a continual, threatening presence or heavy shadow.