Our shared and collective identity

My most recent project Universe focuses on the “consciousness” of our identity. Who are we in relation to our physical, social and political space? What is our unique identity and how does it relate to the collective identity through which we have been formed? The Universe project raises questions about freedom, privacy, social behavior, self-determination and the capacity for self-development within our humanistic tradition. The Universe project makes these aspects visible in a new series of sculptures and installations that I have been working on since 2015.

Unique identity

Our identity arguably exists in the space formed in our skull, which is filled with our own brains. But what lies outside this space? And is the world outside this personal “individual space” unique or the same for everyone? Questions that philosophers have been pondering for centuries.

Shared identity

Our identity is not only defined by our personal space but to a large extent by our environment. Only a ‘shared identity’ makes it possible to function within a society.

Collective identity

In order for our identity to be part of a common shared system, a ‘consciousness’ of social and political conventions and constructions is needed. Together they form a system of ‘collective fantasies’ within which our own and the shared identity can take shape.

Identity as the core of the Universe project

It is these constructs arising from the unique, the shared and the collective identity that form the core
of Universe. Not only in Universe/Self-Portrait 45, the basis of the Universe project, but also in my installation In Case and the video installation Cordon Sanitaire 2020 in which I show the 27 corona speeches of the 27 EU leaders and the traditional setting in which they were given. It is precisely in what we hereby recognize as “tradition” that our shared and collective identity becomes visible.