Christian Peintner: No man's land

One of the most unusual contributions to our campaign #perspectivematters is Christian Peintner's. Read about it here!

This artwork is part of our campaign "Perspective matters". With start'19 in mind, we asked artists what they saw in the apostrophe from our event logo – or if it even is an apostrophe in their eyes. The responses to this call for entries revealed a multitude of perspectives that we want to share with our readers. More information about the campaign can be found HERE. 

Christian Peintner's submission to our campaign #perspectivematters was something different: no plastic, tangible sculpture embodies his perspective, but a project, an idea. "The new sculpture tends towards a lot, but not back to the form carved out of stone", says Peintner, "perhaps because regression makes no sense when striving for development."  Peintner proposed the virtual state of No Man's Land, a fictitious place in the middle of Lake Constance, as a European peace project back in 2006. A place in the middle of Europe that belongs to nobody - and to all of us at the same time.

For Peintner, the apostrophe is "the symbol of something invisible, something missing. For me it is the omitted 'something'. It is the ray of light that creates the shape of a symbol if seen by a certain group of people from a certain point. It is the silent 'H' in language and the space between borders. With start'19 my apostrophe can be made visible. The story of no man's land tells of something that is not yet visible to all. An entire country is lifted from non-existence and meaninglessness into three-dimensionality".

With no man's land, Peintner wants to encourage us to critically reconsider our own perspective on established concepts such as "state" and "society".

There is a also a book about this project (in German).

Are you inspired by this perspective? Don’t hesitate to show your own, then! To get you started we have prepared a craft template – download it HERE. As part of our campaign, we want to encourage everyone to look at their own perspective and maybe re-think it. While making such a small sculpture, you have the best opportunity to turn both things around: the paper sculpture and your own perspective ... we're curious to see what comes out of it! Show us your results with the hashtag #checkyourperspective