Barbie as Suicide Bomber

Suicide Bomber Barbie is a work of art produced by Simon Tyszko and displayed in the bookshop of the ICA on The Mall in 2002. The piece is described by the artist as a deliberate attempt to involve art in current affairs. "I was watching Newsnight,' Tyszko told The Observer "And I just got really angry. Artists don't seem to want to comment on current events. Meanwhile, look at what is happening out there. Political discussion seems to be dead in this country. So I wanted to reflect some of that."

"By his appropriation of a consumerist icon, the artist creates an emphatic subversion of this process, the artist seeking to help create the conditions of political change.
A recent interview with a nine year old Palestinian girl had her saying she had wanted to be a doctor, but could now no longer study or sleep at night, and now only wanted to be a martyr. Tyszko says of her that ‘she has effectively bought the notion of suicide bombing as a lifestyle choice – it has become aspirational, an off the shelf peer led option.’

Suicide Bomber Barbie draws attention to certain kinds of moral, emotional, and political equivalence, which uncomfortably exist within the nationalistic and political systems that contain them. That these systems are dysfunctional, goes without saying."