United States of Europe (2011-2013)
A travelling exhibition going from Lodz to Paris, via Helsinki, Vilnius, Lissabon, Torres Vedras, Nicosia, Dresden, Sofia, Cork & Brussels. Curators: Ryszard W. Kluszczynski (Poland), Anna Bitkina (Russia), and Sinziana Ravini (Sweden/France)
"The United States of Europe" is a name given to several similar hypothetical scenarios of the unification of Europe, as a single nation and a single federation of states, similar to the United States of America, both as projected by writers of speculative fiction and science fiction, and by political scientists, politicians, geographers, historians, and futurologists. Napoleon is supposed to have said during his time on St. Helena ; “Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility". “United States of Europe” (États-Unis d'Europe) was also used by Victor Hugo, during a speech at the International Peace Congress held in Paris in 1849. Hugo favored the creation of "a supreme, sovereign senate, which will be to Europe what parliament is to England" and said, "a day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood... a day will come when we shall see... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas".
Winston Churchill also called for United States of Europe in a speech at the University of Zürich in Switzerland, 1946.
What is Europe today? Is it a geographic region? A concept? A state of mind? Europe has eliminated many borders, but it has also created new ones. There are tensions everywhere. The gap between «being» and «becoming» European, « having rights » and « fighting for ones rights » is growing bigger and bigger. France is struggling with unemployment, Holland with the new « Cultural Meltdown », London with violent riots, Norway with right wing extremists, not to mention the economic crisis in Greece and the other East-European countries.
Europe seems, more than ever, to be torn between nihilists and optimists, people that fight for a better world and those that gave up hope a long, long time ago. Democracy is threatened everywhere, and politicians and the public are - according to Chantal Mouffe - caught up in « antagonistic » power relations instead of looking for «agonistic», fruitful ones.
In «Democracies» (2009) Artur ?mijewski explores the possibility of « free expression in public space » by filming both staged and « real » demonstrations. In the video film « Ausgeträumt » (2010) Deimantas Narkevicius speculates on the horizons of a new generation through a music video depicting his teenage son’s emo band in Lithuania and a mysterious car drive through a snowy landscape. In «Lord’s ride» (2010), Jean-Charles Hue investigates the social community of a Roma family in the north of France, turning upside down all our expectations of what their life must be. Apostolis Polymeris digs into his grandfather’s memories about his migration from Greece to Belgium and Kyriaki Costa plays with both dystopian and utopian visions of a Europe to come.
Being European today is no longer about fixed identities. One is born in a place, grows up in another, falls in love in a third and moves to live in a forth. I was born in Romania in 1976 and moved to Sweden in 1987, since my father was a writer and could not endure the Romanian communist regime any longer. We did not know that Ceausescu’s dictature would crumble just two years later, otherwise we would perhaps have stayed. Coming to Sweden was like travelling into the future. I had never seen so many colourful things, so advanced technological objects and so many choices and options. We also fell in love with the people and decided to burn all our boats and never look back again. We arrived in a small city called Kungsbacka where they had hardly seen any foreigner before, so we were very well taken care of. In the summers my father sent me to France so I could enjoy a little bit of that French cultural perfume that both Swedish and Romanian people are so fond of. When I grew up and went to University, I first studied French literature, then I studied German literature and moved for a while to Heidelberg where I also finished a Thesis on Goethe and German Romanticism. I also studied art history and came to Moscow, where I fell in love with a French man. Now, we are married and live in Paris. Thanks to him I have also returned to my Romanian cultural roots. The circle is closed and I am feeling at home almost everywhere. But this European nomadism is a privilege that not many of us have, and I am more interested than ever to organise exhibitions that could bridge our intercultural gaps. “United States of Europe” is an attempt to do so.
General Co-curatorial Concept
Do you feel European? Does Mr O’Keeffe in Ireland feel more or less European than Mrs Stylianou in Cyprus? And if so, why? What is the idea behind Europe and do Europeans feel included? Do Europeans trust their leaders? Maybe there are as many different answers on these questions as citizens in Europe.
The United States of Europe (U.S.E) project presents various reflections on those questions through four dimensions:
1. Artistic and curatorial part
2. Sociological studies. 50 people from 10 different countries countries have been interviewed. The result is video-recorded interviews that give comparable results of a potential belonging to a European entity.
3. An interactive laboratory.
4. A series of debates.
The exhibition is taking place between November 14 2011 and April 30 2013. The venues are Poland, Finland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Portugal, Cyprus, Germany, Belgium, France and Ireland.
Participating artists: Luchezar Boyadjiev (Bulgaria), Anna Konik (Poland), Gerda Lampalzer (Austria), Maria Lusitano Santos (Portugal), Deimantas Narkevicius (Lithuania), Artur ?mijewski (Poland), Jean-Charles Hue (France), Kaarina Kaikkonen (Finland), REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT (an artist duo, Germany), Tanya Muravskaya (Estonia), Kennedy Browne (an artist duo, Ireland), Apostolis Polymeris (Belgium), Kyriaki Costa (Cyprus), and Anu Pennanen (Finland). Multimedia artist Janis Garancs (Estonia) has created an interactive laboratory as a hybrid communication platform for Europeans to encourage real-time opinion exchange and interaction.
Project initiator: Johanna Suo (Sweden/France). The team of sociologists: Professor Andrzej Piotrowski, Dr Tomasz Ferenc (LodzUniversity), and Dr Lyudmila Nurse (Oxford XXI, United Kingdom). Curators: Ryszard W. Kluszczynski (Poland), Anna Bitkina (Russia), and Sinziana Ravini (Sweden/France)