The opening of the Global Citizen Project exhibition with Michael Gorbachev and Xenia Marita Riebe - 28 June 2007
Primary subject of the „Global Citizen Project“ is
globalisation, most of all the effects of various aspects of this new rapid
development. Globalisation substantially changes our lives. It’s
already obvious that cultural diversity grown over milleniums will gradually
merge with an almost uniform global culture.
Through this project the artist attempts to transform global society in
its cultural variety by means of art. Thus the artist has formed 200 small
lean figures (30cm) from material derived from national newspapers from
all over the world, each figure representing one nation.
This project is the result of Xenia Marita's dealing with cultural and
political topics in the course of the development of globalisation during
the the last years.
The artist's work will mainly focus on
children - are they the first to lose?
languages - how many languages will be threatened with extinction because
of a few all dominant global languages?
scripts - will the diversity of numerous different scipts reduced to some
globally used ones and will many of them disappear?
modern communication technologies - has the rapid development of globalisation
only become possible by the increasing use of modern communication technologies?
The Global Citizen Art Project should cause the viewer to contemplate and
reflect on these topics.
A book on the subject has also been published. The book contains numerous
pictures of single figures each representing one nation as well as groups
such as continents and political organisations e.g. OSCE, ASEAN. The accompanying
text (English and German) focusses on the main topic globalisation and
its various aspects.
photo by Giulio Coscia