Benjamin Geissler
Reflection on my work

We live in Europe.

Politically speaking, a Europe formed on the basis of big business interests and bureaucrats is being created. This means trade promotion facilities and business advantages for the few. On the other hand, the signs of decay of traditional national states in Europe are obvious. The ensuing separatist endeavours cause people to identify with being members of a particular ethnic group or region, rather than with being Europeans. A lack of understanding and rejection of things alien are the consequences. A continent is "alienating" itself.

Culturally speaking, on the other hand, an "exchange of advanced civilisation" is taking place between the European metropolises, whilst at the same time the "nationalisation" of "everyday culture" and the "mass media", in particular regarding television, can be observed. The view towards the peripheries of Europe and the so-called "Third World states" is lost until catastrophes occur. Then a subject is briefly brought to the boil in the media, only to fall into oblivion until the next disaster.

The transition from the peripheries of Europe to the states of the "Third World" is fluid. What do we really know about the life, the anxieties and poverty, but also the yearning, joy and hopes of ordinary people beyond the tourist perspective? Nothing, or next to nothing. Just enough to confirm their existence. But we of all people, who presume we live in the centre of the world, could learn from these people and their view of things from the periphery. We could attempt to draw our own conclusions.

It is in this sense that I interpret the following citation:

The perception of home as a concluded structure involves the risk that home is considered to be an unventilated hole, rather than a springboard of human development; a cave protecting people from the world, rather than a space for contact with it; an instrument to isolate humans from others, rather than a door which opens up the way to the others.

Václav Havel