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Barriers

A barrier can be something physical such as a wall, gate, fence or road that stops us from getting from one place to another.

Sometimes city architecture can seem barrier-like, cutting us off from each other. Julian Opie’s artificial-looking office blocks with their black windows look like huge impenetrable barriers.

Nature also creates barriers. Cliffs, chasms, rivers or hazardous terrain can prevent people from getting to the place they want to go. So can extreme weather conditions.

Thomas Hirschhorn constructs a very different sort of physical barrier in his Drift Topography (2003). The wall of cardboard soldiers forms a barrier surrounding an unstable looking city – a comment on colonialism and war.

Barriers are not always things that we can see. For people who feel lonely, isolated or depressed it can seem as if there is a barrier between them and the rest of the world. Francis Bacon often placed lines around the tortured looking figures in his paintings suggesting a cage or box which acts as a barrier trapping them.

Invisible barriers sometimes form between people who do not understand each other. For example barriers can exist because of age, language or culture. Disabled people can face many barriers. Their disability may mean that they find it hard to do certain things. They can also face the barrier of prejudice.

Many artists have made work about the barriers created by prejudice of different kinds. Artist Doris Salcedo’s dramatic crack in the floor at Tate Modern, Shibboleth (2007), forms a rift down the middle of the building. It symbolizes the barriers created by racism and colonialism. Jason Evans, Rasheed Araeen and the Guerrilla Girls also deal with prejudice in their work and explore ways of confronting its barriers.