" The World frag and farm / Yukinori Yanagi / 1990"
The photo is "The World frag and farm" by Yukinori Yanagi, a Japanese contemporary artist. This work represents the flags of over 200 countries in the world, using colored sand in a plastic box, where thousands of living ants move through plastic tubes that connect the flags to each other.
Each time the ants move, the national flag changes shape, and some of them change shape so that the original shape is not hold. Through this work, we can see how the nation is changing and collapsing and fluidizing by the modern world of globalism.
The current wave of globalization, which began in 2000, has formed an era in which people, money, and things move across borders in large quantities. and this art work was highly praised for expressing the danger and tension of globalism in a time when people were not yet aware of actual social changes. It is also an interesting part of this art work that the aspect changes from moment to moment by the ants.
When I saw this art work this time, I thought about the coronavirus which is currently spreading worldwide, and I was reminded that this art work has a very profound message until today.
At the same time, when I thought that I was sent from Japan to NZ as an evangelical work force to this land, the path followed by the ants above the national flag was not for showing collapse and changes, but looks like Kintsugi's golden lines which are connected each cracked pieces for the harmony and the restoration.
How do you see it? (it's translated by Google translation)