Siah Armajani, Seven Rooms of Hospitality: Room for Asylum Seekers, 2017 — Seen at Tate Modern, Londen 2024.
On August 27, 2015, a tragic discovery shook the world as seventy-one refugees and migrants from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan were found suffocated in the back of a truck abandoned on an Austrian motorway. Sealed within the airtight, refrigerated vehicle, they had perished during their 530-mile journey from Röszke, Hungary, to Munich. The truck, adorned with the logo of the Hyza meat company and images of neatly arranged sliced meat, presented a deceptive exterior of invitation, sharply contrasting with the horror concealed within: 60 men, eight women, and three children, all deceased.
This grim event finds a haunting echo in the art of Siah Armajani (1939), an Iranian-born American artist, whose recent series "Seven Rooms of Hospitality" includes a replica of the truck. Entitled "Room for Asylum Seekers" (2017), the miniature 3D-printed plastic model, measuring just over a foot long and about five inches tall, initially appears innocuous, even playful. However, upon reading the accompanying text—extracted from a newspaper headline—the reference to the harrowing episode becomes starkly apparent.
What a statement. What does this tell about us?
