Continuing our fortnightly series, we look at the enduring power of Doris Salcedo’s pile of 1,500 chairs, which seems only to gain in relevance with each new era and fresh conflict
In 2003, between the months of September and November, 1,500 chairs were slotted and shoved into a giant stack that filled the gap between two buildings in Istanbul. This installation, which seemed both full of violence yet disquietingly empty, spoke of loss, mourning, absence and destruction. Although only now existing in photographs, and in the memory of those who witnessed it, the work makes us wonder where all these chairs came from, who they once belonged to, and what the lives of the people who sat on them were like, as they gathered with others and conversed. Were their lives turned upside down too?
