Mike Nelson has managed to boil the last two years of isolation and quarantine down into one single, tiny, overbearing room of claustrophobic misery.
In his first show in London since his incredible Tate Britain commission, he’s created a bedroom, with a steel framed bed in the middle, and lined with countless maps and guidebooks for faraway countries and cities. There’s no natural light, and it feels like almost no air, either. You search the shelves for some clues, something other than guidebooks to Tibet and Turkey, but all you find is a single shard of bone, some splintered wood and a small plastic pumpkin.
This feels like the room of someone who was never allowed to leave, someone stuck in here, endlessly flicking through Lonely Planets and Rough Guides, dreaming hopelessly of getting out, praying for release from this dank little cell. Feel familiar?
You’re only allowed in one at a time, and when that door shuts behind you, you’re stuck. You sit there, flicking through guides to Jamaica and Papua New Guinea, daydreaming of walking on beaches you’ll never see or sipping on mai tais you’ll never get to drink. This is your cell now, and it’s vile.
It’s tempting to reduce this all down to a Covid-narrative, but that’s too simplistic, Mike Nelson’s better than that. He’s a master of hidden narratives you have to piece together, of finding stories of the long forgotten, the ignored, of mysterious figures who have disappeared.
This is an incredibly simple, small show, but that's partly why it’s so good. No bullshit, just one idea, executed intensely, directly, perfectly. This is about longing desperately for a way out that might never come, about dreaming of escape. But the figure who lived here is gone. That’s the only relief in this overbearing, suffocating show: knowing that you’ll eventually be let out too.
Note: visits must be pre-booked here.
