Mark Wallinger: The World Turned Upside Down

I happened across this large sculptural installation - The World Turned Upside Down, 2019 by artist Mark Wallinger just off Kingsway at The London School of Economics. It's a giant 4 metre high globe with the countries inverted and most now sitting in the southern hemisphere and oceans re-labelled to adopt to their new orientation on the map. The title of the work comes from a famous ballad of the English Revolution, and sums up the ideals of the Digger Community:

‘When once the earth becomes a common treasury again, as it must ... then this enmity of all lands will cease, and none shall dare to seek dominion over others, neither shall any dare to kill another, nor desire more of the earth than another.’ Gerrard Winstanley 1649, The True Levellers Standard Advanced.

Wallinger also states “The UN is the authority as to the names and borders. This is the world, as we know it from a different viewpoint. Familiar, strange, and subject to change.” An appropriate reflection of the times perhaps.

You may also like to read about my favourite Mark Wallinger sculpture which was on public display in the capital exactly two years ago this month here.

Mark Wallinger: The World Turned Upside Down

Saw Swee Hock Student Centre

London School of Economics and Political Science

Houghton Street

London

WC2A 2AE