Neighbours in a “World of Change” Wishes for the Future of the Earth

Region initiates international Project of Art and Education

The “Environment Day” in Hollfeld on 15th May 2004 marks the highlight of an  international Project of Art and Education.

Children play the leading role in this project, school classes from the whole region and pupils from many other places will be collecting and engraving their wishes for the future of the world on small wooden boards which will eventually be put together  in a three-dimensional colourful image of the “World of Change”.

Each class taking part in the project has been financially subsidized by a local club, a firm or another business. Links with Agenda 21- groups of experts from different countries - have been established.

This piece of art is based on an idea of the Hollfeld artist Axel Luther , who likes to compare it with Tibetan prayer flags, with prayers being engraved on wooden boards by  the pupils. These boards will be driven by the wind, thus expressing their symbolic effect.

 We all breathe the same air

Just as these wooden boards are connected by pieces of string, so are we all connected to our environment in many different ways. Many of these ways are very obvious: We all breathe the same air.The same drops of water, which pour down on us have perhaps quenched the thirst of a desert Bedouin. Likewise the fumes from industrial chimneys are carried by the wind over the whole world. Not only ecologically, but also socially and economically we are all inter-connected.

Those boards which cannot be displayed on the Hollfeld globe will be hung on trees and other objects in the vicinity.

Wherever they are on display and turn in the wind, they will send their message all over the world.

 Describing the project

 In their preparation the pupils have been looking closely at 21 different topics, from the hole in the ozone layer, water ecology and the diversity of species to subjects such as AIDS, world hunger and the population explosion, not forgetting the social integration of disabled people and the cohabitation of different ethnic groups. The result of their efforts can be seen on Hollfeld’s Environment Day.

 Aims and targets

 This project day aims at making one thing in particular clear to the children: We are all living as neighbours in the same world and are dependent on each other. We have no other choice but to think globally. Thought, however, must be followed by action! And this begins right here, as our demonstration shows.

Finally, perhaps the most important aspect of all: If one were to tear the strings apart by removing just one of its wooden boards, the whole installation would collapse - just as our world will collapse if we don’t work together.

E-Mail: axelluther@web.de

Axel Luther
Königsallee 82
DE-95448 Bayreuth

Germany