During the summer of 2011, the streets of London were witness to a series of violent riots in which young protesters ran amok within the city. In the aftermath of the devastation, social networking sites used the phrase “burn the village, feel the warmth” to describe the feeling of discontent which sparked the rioters’ anger. Taken from an African proverb, the phrase acts as a caution, warning mankind of the possible destruction which might ensue if the young are estranged from society.

In particular, Nathan Coley was interested in how this phrase was appropriated from the spoken word to the written word—from oral history to being “texted” on a mobile phone. Subsequently, the artist used the proverb as the start-ing point for a new illuminated text piece to adorn Hoog Catharijne shopping complex in Utrecht. Re-contextualizing the phrase, the artist generated a new reading of the proverb. While his text pieces are usually aligned horizontally, Burn the Village,

Feel the Warmth (2013) sprawls vertically down the side of the shopping centre’s façade like that of a hotel sign. However, the sign acts as a warning rather than an advertisement. Splitting the proverb into two, and displaying the resultant halves back to back, Coley exploits this form of display to accentuatethe condition of cause and effect stipulated within the text. The work’s locationis particularly poignant in light of the fact that numerous shops were looted and burned down during the London riots, thus lending the work a sense of foreboding.