The Maybe. 1995. Installation at the Serpentine Gallery, London

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CORNELIA PARKER is an English sculptor and installation artist best known for her intervention with site-specific work, for large-scale installations. For some years her work has been concerned with formalising things beyond our control, containing the volatile and making it into something that is quiet and contemplative. Through a combination of visual and verbal allusions her work triggers cultural metaphors and personal associations, which allow the viewer to witness the transformation of the most ordinary objects into something compelling and extraordinary. More recently her attention has turned to issues of globalisation, consumerism and the mass-media.

In CORNELIA PARKER‘s installation at the Serpentine Gallery, The Maybe, 1995, TILDA SWINTON played the toughest role in a career devoted to challenging ones: herself asleep or apparently so. For seven consecutive days, eight hours a day, she lay motionless, eyes closed, in a raised, glass casket – a contemporary Sleeping Beauty in jeans and deck shoes, subject to intense scrutiny and speculation.