All posts tagged: intercultural dialogue

Want to Wave a World Flag?

Published by nathalie alyon

Did you know that there have been various attempts at creating a flag of the earth? One that would represent our planet as a whole rather than a conglomerate of imaginary nations. Flag of Earth by James Cadle is very modern and flag-like and the UN flag has been suggested as a place filler until one can be decided upon. Just this year Sweedish artist Oskar Pernefeldt proposed the International Flag of the Earth, but no contender to represent humanity has gained legitimacy. My favorite flag of the earth is of course Anne Kirstine Rønhede’s “World Flag” and not because she is a dear friend. She came up with the idea that we need a flag that represents everyone: No matter where you live, what you believe (if you believe in anything) and what you do – you are a human being and you live on this planet called Earth. We have flags that symbolize countries and organizations; we should also have a flag that symbolize that we are part of the same world. I’ve always had …

Mexico, Francis Alys, and Brotherhood

Published by nathalie alyon

English TürkçeI would have never imagined that Francis Alÿs’s exhibition “Relato de Una Negociacion” at Mexico City’s Tamayo Museum would have such an effect on me. I wasn’t even planning on going there. I had left my AirBnB room that Sunday morning with the intention of going to the Museum of Anthropology—one of the city’s “musts”—and that’s where I had gone. But before I purchased a ticket, some sort of a protest art in the museum’s palatial lobby caught my attention. As I stood there trying to figure out what the lines of empty chairs with photos of faces on them meant, a lady who I later learned to be a history professor named Angelica, handed me a flyer. She told me that the chairs represented the 43 students who “disappeared” almost a year ago in Iguala while protesting the government’s discriminative policies in teacher placement. The demand of the protestors, of which there were two, was simple: the disclosure of the location of these individuals, dead or alive. “Since this museum is part of the INAH …