Risk Jemima Burrill and Raul Ortega

Risk brings together two of the most exciting emerging artist talents today. Jemima Burrill (b. 1970), a graduate from the Chelsea School of Art and Design, and Raul Ortega (b. 1973), a Mexican-born post-graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, have teamed up to create an exhibition which explores the issue of risk and uncertainty in everyday life.

The Hiscox building in EC3, home to an eclectic collection of paintings from the last 50 years, will itself become a work of art on the 18th of February when the office lights will be programmed to create a pixellated image on the side of the building – an effect which has become known as a ‘monumental drawing’. The image will take the shape of a bomb.

Burrill interviewed more than 200 staff at Hiscox, including underwriters, security staff and managers about their own greatest ‘risk’. Responses ranged from ‘having my belly button pierced without my Dad’s permission’ to ‘fleeing Tibet’ and revealed a pervading sense of risk as a personal rather than professional threat. The results of the employee interviews will be displayed as if stocks and shares on a mock information bar: a dot matrix mimicking those seen on a trading floor, transforming the intimate details of people’s lives into public commodities.

The exhibition opened to the public from 18 February to 2 April 2004 at Hiscox.