Roadworks (1985) is a short video edited from documentation of artist Mona Hatoum’s hour-long performance of the same title, performed in the streets of Brixton in southwest London in 1985. Her performance began with her exiting the Brixton Art Gallery, feet bare, with a pair of black Dr. Martens boots tied to her ankles by their laces. Taking long, slow strides, she walked through a market dragging these boots, which, at the time, were commonly associated with police officers and neo-Nazis.

Mona Hatoum’s poetic and political work incorporates installations, sculpture, video, photography, and works on paper. She started her career in the 1980s making visceral video and performance work that focused intensely on the body, and in the 1990s transitioned to sculpture and installations that evoke desire and revulsion, fear and fascination.