Fallujah 2005

Siah Armajani made this piece, ‘Fallujah’, with mixed media to create a scale model of a house, or perhaps a prison. There's a real sense of process here, everything is raw and exposed. The black frame against the clear walls makes me think about architectural plans. But the flames painted on the top floor change the reading; they suggest something more sinister, more human. Downstairs, a child’s rocking horse is trapped within a room containing a bed. Is the house a prison? What is happening in the world outside? A lot of feeling comes from the tension between the hard, minimal form of the grid and the child’s bedroom inside. I see echoes of Kurt Schwitters' ‘Merzbau’ here, that same sense of a life lived inside art, a kind of total environment which is at once beautiful and unsettling. Ultimately, I think it’s a reflection on violence and innocence.