Kriya Art Foundation (The Netherlands & India) book project Life in Covid19 times and after Book project and online display 2020.
Proposed publication partner: Notionpress.com The book will available on Amazon hard copy & PDF form.
The aim of the project is to bring 360 creative minds together to express and document global concerns about COVID-19. The initiative will facilitate a view of great artworks and good ideas from around the world at one platform and a memory of the time and a tribute to the people who lost their lives in these crises. This project is non-commercial and initiated through humanitarian motivation. How does Art and creative expression matter in times when the World is being affected by COVID-19? http://www.kriyaartfoundation.org
My contribution to this book:
Manipulation is a main topics in my artwork. Therefor I invented the fake brand LICENSE – ‘creating fear as a brand’. Fear is the best selling product of this time. Just because LICENSE is questioning indoctrination, we can immediately refer to propaganda. Propaganda is the concept used by totalitarian systems to proclaim an ideology. The mechanisms used in propaganda are similar to the techniques in advertising. Both want to manipulate our thinking, your believe. During this COVID19 lock down, everyone was talking about protection. One of the main tools is the mouth mask. Since no one was prepared for such an epidemic, there was a big shortage on masks. So, a lot of people started to make masks themselves. I was thinking how much time and labor is needed to make just one mask by hand. It’s incredible how many steps are required: Buying fabric and standing in line in front of the shop, buying plastic zipper bags, buying stretchers on the internet, cutting patches, measuring, pleating and ironing, cutting the stretchers, sewing the masks and putting them in a plastic zipper bag. This type of manual labor is priceless in Western-Europe, because the wages are too high. Do we consider here a limitation of the Western wealth? To protect us against this limitation ‘we created’ low wage countries. Where people are working in sweat shops for less than a minimal wage and suffering from bad conditions in which they have to work. I made 50 LICENSE face masks with the slogan ‘Fear is a funny thing’ and sold them for €20. Due to the added ‘certificate’ (with number and signature), all the masks where sold out in no time. The customer was involved in this project and had the feeling of buying an artwork.
PETER PUYPE 