"Human dignity is inviolable".

Barrier free installation, 2012/2019

Black manganese panels, shot through and pierced, metal frame, projectile tray, LED light strips, transformer; H/W/D = 206/142/42 cm

 

On loan from "Zero Project | The Essl Foundation" to the Austrian parliament

Installation location: Foyer of room 1 "Erwin Schrödinger", ground floor

 

 

My installation thematizes the principle "Human dignity is inviolable" (Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 1).

This principle bridges all linguistic and cultural differences within the European Union. To illustrate this, I have selected ten from the official EU languages, used all three alphabets found in these languages, and added Braille as a symbol of the importance of inclusion.

In the tradition of archaic law tablets, this principle is depicted in unglazed, fired clay tablets. For this purpose, the words were shot into wet clay panels and the shot holes were afterwards shaped in an exaggerated manner. The projectiles used, collected in a metal tub, are visible on the floor as part of the installation.

The violence-associated production process refers to the paradox of human history, in which precisely humane basic rights have all too often had to be enforced with weapons, and unfortunately still have to be.

 

However, fired clay is not only hard, but at the same time fragile, thus vulnerable. The installation is therefore to be read as a permanent call: The inviolability of human dignity must be protected, preserved and defended, always and constantly. This is not only, but also, a European task, which always poses itself anew and differently.

 

In detail, I have selected ten from all the official languages of the EU for this installation, according to the following guidelines:

To begin with, the four languages of the northernmost, southernmost, westernmost and easternmost member countries of the EU should be represented: Finland, Malta, Portugal and Cyprus.

Furthermore, all language families occurring in the official EU languages should be represented at least once:

-English and German as Germanic languages,

-French and Portuguese as Romance languages,

- Bulgarian and Polish as Slavic languages,

-Lithuanian as Baltic languages,

-Greek,

-Finnish as a Finno-Ugric language, and

-Maltese as a Semitic language.

In order to fully show the variety of scripts found in the EU area, the Greek script and the Cyrillic characters of Bulgarian are represented in addition to the Latin alphabet.