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Tate Modern: Miroslaw Balka's 'How It Is' sculpture
Things get very dark in the Turbine Hall
(Photos ©urban75, 6th March 2010; exhibition finishes 5th April 2010)
Polish artist Miroslaw Balka's sculpture - entitled 'How It Is' - dominates the Turbine Hall, standing 13 metres high by 30 metres long, and balanced on 2 metre stilts.
The giant grey steel structure forms a vast dark chamber, with visitors entering via a ramp into a pitch black interior.
The large metal box with the entrance at the far end.
Entrance to the box.
Here's how the Tate Modern describes the experience:
 Underlying this chamber is a number of allusions to recent Polish history – the ramp at the entrance to the Ghetto in Warsaw, or the trucks which took Jews away to the camps of Treblinka or Auschwitz, for example. By entering the dark space, visitors place considerable trust in the organisation, something that could also be seen in relation to the recent risks often taken by immigrants travelling.
Balka intends to provide an experience for visitors which is both personal and collective, creating a range of sensory and emotional experiences through sound, contrasting light and shade, individual experience and awareness of others, perhaps provoking feelings of apprehension, excitement or intrigue. 
Looking out from near the entrance to the box.
Walking out of the box. I rather liked the experience - the first time I felt as blind as bat but the second time my eyesight had adjusted so I could make out most of the moving shapes.
Andy Warhol room at the Tate Modern.
Tate Modern view.
There's a great view across the Thames from the Tate Modern, with the Millennium Bridge to the right of this picture.
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