London, the 15th of april 2007, 3pm, Warrior Penguins at The Tate Modern

Hall of the Tate Modern

At 3pm precisly, 30 warrior penguins had been dropped down all over the floor by our group of 15 people no where else than down the hall of the Tate Modern, the most popular modern and contemporary art museum of London. Couple of minutes later, the people around surprised but obviously attracted, showed a particular interest for this wild performance. Later on, the security people began to get a move on asking us to remove the warrior penguins dropped without any authorization. There was no possible way for us to respond to their expectation and we did our best to explain to them our motivation and the meaning of this action.

At 3:10pm precisly, some of the security people began to pick up the warrior penguins to take them away. I would like to point out that the security people and the direction didn't take any notice that this installation is an art work produced by an artist. They didn't bother about beeing considerate using force and brutality as they wished to remove the warrior penguins as quick as possible, failing to break some of them.

At 3:15pm precisly, the hall was left empty. At the moment around 15 of the hold warrior penguins keep remaining at The Tate Modern at the "found objects" office for 3 months maximum.

These warrior penguins belong to the public. Please don't hesitate to go down the found objects office to ask for your Warrior penguin. At the moment we do not know what The Tate Modern intends to do concerning this illegal and disturbing art work. It would be really instructive to hear how an important museum considers the art he hasn't selected itself and its behaviour afterwards.

Durind the performance, we spread out flyers to the public and the security people to explain the meaning of this wild installation :
Public note
Tate Modern note

Contact :
dalila@himalaika.com