Krzysztof Wodiczko: Peace | ART21 "Exclusive"

Episode #121: "You cannot work towards peace being peaceful" says artist Krzystof Wodiczko, who explains this paradoxical position in terms of his personal experiences growing up in Poland under communist rule. Filmed at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wodiczko's interview is punctuated by the sound of sirens from outside, the city in a state of "full alert."

By appropriating public buildings and monuments as backdrops for projections, Krzysztof Wodiczko focuses attention on ways in which architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history. Projecting images of community members' hands, faces, or entire bodies onto architectural façades, and combining those images with voiced testimonies, Wodiczko disrupts our traditional understanding of the functions of public space and architecture. He challenges the silent, stark monumentality of buildings, activating them in an examination of notions of human rights, democracy, and truths about the violence, alienation, and inhumanity that underlie countless aspects of social interaction in present-day society.

Learn more about Krzysztof Wodiczko: http://www.art21.org/artists/krzysztof-wodiczko

VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Gary Henoch. Sound: Steve Bores. Editor: Joaquin Perez

. Special Thanks
: Catherine Tatge, the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

(fast ethereal music)

(sirens blaring)

- [Woman] Should we? Ok, let's try.

- This is part of the city.

The city is always on full alert.

Whether successful or not.

Is this ok? Can I speak?

- [Woman] We're ready.
- You're ready? Ok.

Maybe it's not the right
thing for us to discuss here,

but I have to say something
for record about peace.

- [Woman] Are you ok? No?

- My position is that you can not work

towards peace being peaceful

in many ways.

One thing is that, what kind
of peace are we imagining?

Peace that is peaceful,
that's not worth imagining

this kind of peace.

If the peace is to be the
one where everybody's quiet,

and doesn't open up one's
self towards others,

doesn't share what's unspeakable,

doesn't disrupt the others,

doesn't offer unsolicited criticism,

doesn't defend other's right to speak,

that peace is worth nothing.

- [Voiceover] It's actually reminds me

the kind of peace that was
secured in my old country

on the communist regime.

That is death of democracy.

That might have
consequences as bad as war,

as bloody war and conflict.

So, in a way to prevent the
world from bloody conflict,

we must sustain a certain kind of

adversarial life

in which we are struggling
with our problems in public.

(coughing)

Because those interruptions,

destroying the kind of
dramatic aspect of my speech.

- [Woman] What if they're
adding to the trauma?

- Well, for you, but I don't
know if it will be clear,

and another school will see it later.

(fast ethereal music)