This note was available to visitors to the artwork “Offen und Alles und Zusammen”, “Open and All and Together” (Light-drawing, 2022, location specific size of approx 15x15m in the Evangelische Schlosskirche in Schlosspark Rumpenheim.
As we humans developed a consciousness and self awareness, perhaps even before, it became clear that any one of us could not live without others. We need the connection to others, we need a community. And for all participants in that community, the connection needs to be one of dependence and also harmony.
And we are not only dependent on each other. We are connected to nature, the planet, and ultimately the universe. We are born from the dust of stars. We are born from the love of our parent:s our family, and our love for others. This fundamental understanding has seemingly been moved further and further away from us.
We are educated to produce, consume, fight and win. Individually. In often inhumane ways. Disharmonised. Globalised and sold to an illusion that food comes from supermarkets, electricity from the outlet, and oil and petrol form a pump.
Only slowly are we discovering that such thinking is dangerous. We are racing towards a global environmental catastrophe. Many species will be extinct, and large areas of the planet will become uninhabitable. Even humanity itself might dance at the edge of extinction.
We need to create spaces and places that remind us that we need joined experiences and togetherness in order to survive. A church, or a place of prayer can be where we can become aware of the uniqueness of our collective experience.
It is a place where we can realize that we are parts of something much larger than us, and that in the end it is not all about the individual win, especially when humanity is on the brink and we all might lose. Humans, life, the planet.
This installation is intended to connect the viewers with something that connects them to the world, to time, to the idea of us.
Entering the church, the drawing appears flat, as if painted onto a flat wall. But once the viewer moves closer, they are able to see that the image is projected onto the ceiling, the walls, the altar.
On one hand, the image is changed, but on the other hand it becomes clearer that our experiences shift and can change their form.
Differences and tensions are part of the larger picture.
The clarity is biggest when entering and leaving the church. That’s when the expectation is most clearly met.
This is the moment of innocence, as if a birth, and then the moment of understanding, the melting with the world outside, as if with the last breath.
From the ashes to dust, from dust to ashes. Always part of something bigger.
More meaning is given to the work in the context of the city of Offenbach am Main. The city is on one hand enviably diverse. On the other hand it is not exactly pretty. It is however a city that continuously reinvents itself and is built on a community that spans generations.
Comments