"Make Art - Not War" - 21 March, 2003

"Berlin-Moscow. A Journey for All" is the name of a media project by Marina Lyubaskina, an artist from Russia.

A presentation of the project, which features computer technologies, video and photography and is turned into the history of 20th-century Europe as well as toward the future, is taking place in the German Cultural Centre /the Goethe Institute/ on Friday.

The project is consonant with the topic of the day, when the old slogan "Peace to the World" is becoming an urgent point against the background of anti-war protests. Modern artists however have come up with a slightly modernised version, "Make Art - Not War," a motto that can be easily applied to Lyubaskina's project.

The artist has based her project on the famous photograph of a Soviet soldier hoisting a Victory flag on top of the Reichstag in Berlin. The historical symbol she supplemented with Russia's topographic symbol, the figure of a bear, a beast that graces the Berlin coat of arms as well as the coats of arms of several Russian towns.

"I'm exploring new territories and mark them with flags with the images of a Russian bear," says Lyubaskina. Making use of yet another symbol of Russia, the ballet, she arrays the heroine-her alter ego-in a tutu and plants her on the roofs of famous Berlin buildings, making her proclaim the motto "Make Art - Not War" by "waving a red banner in the shape of a piano lid with a staff in the form of a painter's brush." The event, "a symbol of an entirely new peace-loving history and a protest against war and all kinds of violence," the author explains.