Читать книгу South Tyrol. The Other Italy - Елизавета Эбнер - Страница 3

The art island of Naoshima in the Seto Inland Sea features a work The World Flag Ant Farm by the artist Yukinori Yanagi. The artwork is made of rows of plexiglass boxes with flags inside of them made of coloured sand. The boxes are connected by tubes, through which ants are running, carrying the sand from one part of the installation to another. Everything is real in the work of the Japanese artist: the insects build nests, move, eat from specially designed food dispensers, and die. Yanagi’s philosophy is as follows: “Nations, ethnic groups, religions are limited by imaginary boundaries, born of social or institutional constructions.” When ants destroy clear contours of the flags, they, in his opinion, demonstrate “a simple and encouraging way to gradually unite all the peoples of the world.” Yukinori Yanagi’s installation is symbolic. It questions the importance of borders between countries, raises the issue of their gradual destruction and the consequences of migration.

I wonder if the ants in the Japanese artist’s work were of different species… Alas, there is no information about that, and yet not all the varieties of those insects are friendly to each other. Quite like people, they fight for their territory, food, children, and domination of their own species. Who knows how quickly the fragile sand boundaries would become multi-coloured well-organized fortifications in real life?