“We want to unite people, and in doing so we lose ourselves in a thicket of new terms and categories.”
Nationality. Religion. Gender. Origin. Status. Skin colour. Political affiliation. We name, categorise and distinguish in ever finer detail. But the more terms we place between us, the easier it becomes to turn a person into the Other.
Nobody is born as the Other.
The UStronauts are figures from a world in which these outward attributions disappear. Their suits conceal origin, gender, age and social status. What remains is the human being.
They are not astronauts in search of outer space. Their journey leads inward.
The snail shell on their back replaces the oxygen tank. It stands for home, shelter and retreat – the inner place we carry within us.
UStronauts are all of us.
In the installation, the figures become a silent society. They form groups, meet one another, seem to listen and to communicate. Others remain alone or at the edge, as if still searching for their place. Closeness, distance and arrangement become part of the dialogue.
Facing the UStronauts are the RAWbots. Rusty, hardened, with petrified snail shells on their backs, they embody not evil but those parts of us that close off and set boundaries.
UStronaut and RAWbot are therefore not a confrontation of good and evil. Both are within us.
Perhaps we do not need to become less different.
Perhaps we need to learn to be different without turning one another into the Others.
UStronauts are not about space.
They are about us. About all of us.
Not from the United States.
But for a United State of Mind.
Out there inside of us.
- Infos
