Europa

                                   approaches Europe not as a fixed political entity but as an ethical proposition sustained through shared commitments. The work examines how humanist values such as empathy, legal equality, and collective responsibility are gradually destabilized under the pressure of exclusionary nationalism and authoritarian modes of belonging.

Drawing on visual languages associated with childhood, play, and mass culture, the sculptural installation translates familiar toy figures into the scale of adult bodies. Through this shift in scale and context, seemingly benign cultural forms are revealed as carriers of ideological content. Militarized aesthetics, simplified narratives of belonging, and rigid hierarchies enter social consciousness not through confrontation, but through repetition, affect, and normalization.

Rather than framing authoritarianism as an external rupture, Europa attends to its incremental integration into democratic life. These forces circulate quietly through everyday narratives of security, tradition, and identity, recalibrating moral thresholds over time. Empathy becomes conditional, solidarity selective, and human worth increasingly assessed through belonging, utility, or conformity.

The work treats authoritarian influence as relational and cumulative. It is sustained through imitation, accommodation, opportunistic alliances, and the gradual erosion of ethical boundaries. What emerges is not a singular threat, but a diffuse cultural and psychological condition manifested by fatigue, indifference, and the normalization of exclusion.

Referencing Europe's mythological origin, Europa destabilizes the promise of a founding narrative. Instead of unity or progress, it suggests a moment of ethical thinning, where openness, integration, and human rights risk being quietly undone. What emerges is not collapse, but a slow hollowing of values once held as non-negotiable.

Rather than offering direct accusation, Europa operates as a site of recognition. It renders visible the subtle mechanisms through which authoritarian logics become embedded in everyday life, and asks how long an ethical project can persist once its foundational values are no longer actively defended.

[Europa. Human size figures. Stoneware, engobes, horsehair, gold lustre. 1200 °C, oxygen. 2019.

The soldier's size corresponds to an approximately 180 cm tall man, Barbie's size corresponds to an approximately 160 cm tall woman.]

29 827,20 € (+ tax 10%)