THE RIVER. IV / the Monument - 2025

THE RIVER. IV / the Monument-2025

The Great Question: Why does man inflict such inhumanity upon his fellow man?

This singular question is the heartbeat of THE RIVER. It carries the project beyond the personal, beyond its point of origin. It expands into a universal, timeless reflection on human history—on what endures, what recurs, what refuses to fade.

Violence, war, oppression, destruction, flight—why are these so deeply woven into the fabric of human existence? Why do they course through time like an unrelenting river, from the earliest wars of antiquity to our present day?

A river—never ceasing, never yielding.
And yet—time and again, interrupted by moments of hope.

"Human Material"—A Brutal Reality
For centuries, humans have been reduced to mere material—malleable, exploitable, disposable. A body, a shadow, a number. Stripped of name, dignity, and worth. Interchangeable to the point of oblivion.
But man is not material.

THE RIVER embodies this truth—not as a rigid monument, not as an immovable sculpture, but as a living, breathing work of art. A body in motion, a testament to the endless cycle of violence—and the hope that one day, this river may finally cease to flow.

The performance makes the "human material" visible:
• as an emergency blanket—light, fragile, protective, yet itself unprotected,
• as a body—a symbol of vulnerability and dignity,
• as movement—an eternal rhythm of despair and resurrection.
The river of emergency blankets becomes a scar upon the landscape.

A trace of a primal trauma.
An echo of those who were never heard.
A sign of that which repeats.
"Never again"—a warning, a promise.
But what does Never again mean when yesterday refuses to pass?
Never again is now.
Reckoning does not begin tomorrow. It begins today.

THE RIVER—A Timeless Statement
This project is not a chronicle of the past.
It is a voice for the present.
It speaks for those who were forgotten.
For those whose names were erased.
For the humanity that was shattered—and yet, against all odds, rises again.

For centuries, people have been stripped of their dignity, their identity erased.
But a person is more than what was taken from them.
A human being is memory.
A human being is presence.
A human being is future.

With this project, I seek to restore what was seized.
To remember them is to return them to the river of humanity—
even where inhumanity once reigned.


THE RIVER as a Monument—A Space for Remembrance, Presence, and Future
This project is not a call for revenge.
It is not a ritual that speaks for a moment, then falls silent.
THE RIVER is a human response to unrelenting inhumanity.
In this second part, I envision the river as a monument—
a lasting presence in the public space:

• at the heart of the city—where life pulses,
• or within a landscape, a park—a quiet place of remembrance.
A monument of light and shadow.
A space for silence, for questions, for encounters.
A bridge between past, present, and future.
"When will this inhumanity end?"

It is said: Whoever saves a single life saves the whole world.
But what of the one who destroys, violates, abuses, who inflicts terror upon a life—
physically, psychologically?
Does he also destroy the world?

THE RIVER is my answer.
A sign cast in bronze.
A memorial against forgetting.
A call for cooperation. For humanity.
For that which unites us.
A monument that not only admonishes—but obliges.