Mona Hatoum: ‘It’s all luck. I feel things happen accidentally’

On the eve of a major Tate Modern show, the Beirut-born installation artist talks about identity, homeland and being a London student in the cheerless 70sIn 1982, the artist Mona Hatoum staged a performance piece at the Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth. Its title was Under Siege, and it lasted for seven hours. Hatoum was naked, covered in clay, and trapped inside a huge transparent container, a strange primeval mermaid without any water in which to swim. Again and again, she would try to stand up; ag