Georgio Agamben radicalises Hannah Arendt’s thesis that the concentration camp is the central institution of totalitarian society by extending it to the liberal democratic societies of the contemporary West. The camp according to Agamben, is “the space that opens up when the state of exception starts to become the rule.” His important rumination on the state of exception enables us to understand the camp beyond its archetypes in refugee camps, prisons and gated communities.

These cans transmogrify the tools created by Nazi camp prisoners with the items of our everyday, which are saturated with associations of Andy Warhol’s works about consumerism.

The work was made as part of a 2010 residency program for curator Adam Nankervis titled Black Stars on a White Sky, at the Chateau de Sacy British Council residency in Sacy-le-Petit France.