Prints size 174x152 cm
What is courage? Sometimes, it takes much more courage to live rather than to die. Many people, even in early childhood, decide to leave prematurely. Eric Berne, a psychologist who studied life scenarios, wrote and spoke a lot about this. How does an act of heroism, self-sacrifice and overcoming the fear of death differ from the lack of value of life? Someone else’s or our own - it doesn’t matter, if we don’t value someone else’s life, we treat ours the same way (it seems that Prigozhin understood better than the others where to find an “instant hero”).
Courage does not always mean facing death. Courage is, first of all, to face the truth! Such courage has been and will be relevant everywhere and always, in times of war and peace.
It takes courage to see that tyranny always rests on conformism. That there is a Putin in every thinking and not thinking head, that it doesn’t start in Kremlin, but in families, both in Russia and in the USA. That behind empty words and slogans lies an infantile vision of the world, that we prematurely declare a value something, we are not ready to fight for. That we project hatred of ourselves and our parents onto our enemies, that we run from pain into addiction, religion or loneliness. It takes courage to be real, to recognize all our feelings and imperfections and to live our own life.
Courage does not always mean facing death. Courage is, first of all, to face the truth! Such courage has been and will be relevant everywhere and always, in times of war and peace.
It takes courage to see that tyranny always rests on conformism. That there is a Putin in every thinking and not thinking head, that it doesn’t start in Kremlin, but in families, both in Russia and in the USA. That behind empty words and slogans lies an infantile vision of the world, that we prematurely declare a value something, we are not ready to fight for. That we project hatred of ourselves and our parents onto our enemies, that we run from pain into addiction, religion or loneliness. It takes courage to be real, to recognize all our feelings and imperfections and to live our own life.
During my time in Russian occupied Kherson, I often remembered the words of the song “The Black Sun” by Bi-2, a Russian rock band. I listened it quite often before the war, but after the occupation, I started to perceive it as a prophecy. Strugatsky’s “The Island” also emerged from memory, with naive romanticism, but a very similar Russian scenario.
Verse 1:
Crimson tones lights up Paranoia
Neighboring Universe is at war
Magnetic field of an unequal battle
With its deadly wave is coming to us
Chorus:
If the Black Sun blasts into pieces
Everything in this life will turn upside down
The world we get used to will never return
It will not return
He rings the bell to raise the alarm.
The sad ghost of our freedom
But they won’t hear and won’t help
Dead Gods
Verse 2:
The sources of light In the endless night
Twinkling stars - cigarette lights
The planets line up in the last parade
And everyone will get a lucky ticket
Chorus x2
The Black Sun is not what the video was made about. The black sun is fear, at its very core, the only thing that stands between us and freedom. In Kherson my black sun blasted into pieces. And yes, life turned upside down. In fact, it just started there.