Black hole descends on Tate Modern

A vast steel container made entirely from Corus Advance sections is the eerie centrepiece of the latest exhibition at London’s Tate Modern.

Measuring 13m high, 10m wide and 30m long, the steel container is mounted on a series of 2m high supports with one end open to the public and accessible via a ramp.

Designed by Polish artist Miroslaw Balka, and part of the Tate’s ‘How it is’ series, the container invites people to enter it and experience the complete blackness within. The container has no internal lighting, but anyone walking into it can quickly turn around and observe other visitors outlined against light from the entrance.

The artist has long been obsessed with the fate of Poland’s Jews during World War II, and the container is intended to evoke the suffocating and disorientating sensation of a cattle car or a gas chamber.