INSPIRATION

Art con­nects our hearts

«The point is, art nev­er stopped a war and nev­er got any­body a job. That was nev­er its func­tion. Art can­not change events. But it can change peo­ple. It can affect peo­ple so that they are changed… because peo­ple are changed by art – enriched, enno­bled, encour­aged – they then act in a way that may affect the course of events… by the way they vote, they behave, the way they think.»

Leonard Bern­stein

Com­pos­er, Con­duc­tor, John Gru­en inter­view in Los Ange­les Times, Decem­ber 31, 1972

Sum­mer 1996, Boston MA, USA. Fin­ish­ing up my four years of study­ing music at Berklee Col­lege of Music. A won­der­ful time. Through my stud­ies I was able to con­nect with musi­cians around the world and share with them my love for music and the arts. Could peo­ple around the world also find a con­nec­tion like this? Could this hap­pen ouside a pres­ti­gious Music Col­lege? What would it take to finde such a con­nec­tion? Could such an con­nec­tion be pro­mot­ed or adver­tised? Would such a con­nec­tion lead to more peace around the world?

In my imag­i­na­tion a glob­al art project start­ed to take form, hav­ing its incu­ba­tion in the World­cross­ing Times Square New York, spread­ing out into the world like a mag­ic trick, like a almost to big chal­lange that becomes true, that in its own mag­ic nature would sym­bol­ize and proof our hope for peace. On a Bill­board, from far, you would see the world, and if you would move clos­er, you would see that the world was formed by the words „I love you“ in all writ­ten lan­guages. Sug­gest­ing that love is an uni­ver­sal pow­er and a per­son­al at once. A lan­guage just like music. I imag­ined peo­ple bee­ing inspired by this Bill­board and help­ing it going viral into Times Square and then the world, inspir­ing oth­er peo­ple world­wide to unite for a moment in time in their wish for love and peace. 

A childs view of peace

But why was this so impor­tant to me? Since ear­ly child­hood I had this strong wish for world­peace, prob­a­bly like many of us. My par­ents grew up in Ger­many dur­ing the war. My moth­er was a refugee. It’s said that the expe­ri­ence of war chil­dren is passed on to their own chil­dren, and that these chil­dren also some­how emo­tion­al­ly become chil­dren of war. My moth­er tought me the impor­tance of anti vio­lence, and it became one of my core prin­ci­ples. Maybe that’s where my deep­est wish for peace came from.

Advertisement could also promote Peace

We all know about adver­tise­ment and its pro­mot­ed pow­er. As a Teenag­er I thought this could also be used to pro­mote peace. If I learn more about it, I might take action myself. I lat­er on learned that adver­tise­ment can’t adver­tise every­thing, its lim­it­ed to adress wish­es that are already dor­mant inside of us. Could there be a dor­mant wish for peace that we could adress? Is there a dor­mant wish for a glob­al peace we all share, like the wish to con­nect in music that I expe­ri­enced in Boston?

Ear­ly Draft of the Loveposter