Ever since the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, the idea of language is associated with the capability of humans to share their knowledge for a common benefit. The failure of communication inevitably results in their collective downfall.
“The Babel” addresses the language as a fabric of meaning, where different languages are presented by different colours, all originating from the same source of our mundane experience. Just like the colours of visual spectrum, they all together converge into pristine clarity of ideas. The installation displays a circle of “universal meaning” from which threads of different colours descend into the core of an open globe, where they entangle into chaotic heap.
Yet, this setup allows for two different readings. In a “top-down” view it paraphrases the story of Babel, of confusion of insulated languages, but following the path from our global reality, in a “bottom-up” perspective, it tells about disentangling of multitude of languages into universal ideas. There, all languages appear only as different colours of the shared human experience and purpose. Which of those two ways the reality will chose to follow, remains to be seen.
The installation was inspired by the motto of the European Union, “United in diversity”, that was promoted in 2000.