80 Questions Around the WorldShow Your Hope______________________________________________________There are many questions in the world than we think of. For this travelling show we havechosen only eighty. The exhibition we propose to take to as many countries as possible consistsof works---all of a uniform size of panels of 30cm by 35 cm---in which artists face questionsconfronting the contemporary world and affirm their faith in our common human future byexpressing their faith through their painting. It is like an idea of creating a think-tank of artistsand initiating a dialogue among them and art lovers who come to see these diverse expressionsof hope.I am not the initiator of this concept and movement. That credit goes to Martin Voorbij, aformer rock musician and now the founder of the project The 80 Questions Around theWorld, a non-profit body volunteering to promote art with a humanistic purpose.Martin Voorbij called on me in 2004. He came to deliver a 25cmx35cm blank panel. I was thenin Rotterdam. When Martin arrived, I was in a cyber cafe, standing behind the counter. Martinwas not sure if I was the artist he had come to see. However, after a hesitant introduction westarted talking and discussed his project. Martin’s concept struck a sympathetic chord in mebecause I was an artist of Indian origin who had lived in the Netherlands since 1980 and though Iwas by then a Dutch citizen, I had experienced displacement and a sense of exile at many levelsin what many other expatriate artists living in European countries.The European scene had begun to change profoundly since 2001 when the European EconomicCommunity started dissolving its internal borders and making it possible to travel freely withinthe EEC. I was a member of that society in the throes of sometimes traumatic and oftenconfusing change. The introduction of a common European currency, the Euro, may have been arational and a systematic transition towards unity for the economists and the financial expertswho designed it; but it was chaos and disaster for common people everywhere. It engagedintellectuals in vicious and acrimonius debate about the consequences of having a commoncurrency and the dissolution of border check posts. As it blocked up all unaccounted cashreserves of individuals---their black money as we would call it in India----there was panic.Pensioners found their savings gobbled up by currency conversion rates for their old nationalcurrency with the Euro. As far as the art market in Europe was concerned the currency changejust brought it to a standstill. Revaluation of collections and art assets as well the work of newartists in terms of the Euro posed many problems.When the foundations of any society shift, most of the people seek safety and refuge in religiousorthodoxy and political conservatism. Racial prejudice against immigrants comes to the fore.Immigrants feel insecure and seek to return for psychological comfort to their native cultural orreligious roots. Europe was not yet cosmopolitan and liberal enough to accomodate what itconsidered alien. It was entering a period of deep social and cultural unrest as well as politicaluncertainty. Nobody could tell what lay in the future.It was at such a time that I visited the Boymans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, arepository of the best works of medieval Dutch and Flemish masters, to see a special exhibitionof the works of Hieronymous Bosch ( 1450-1516). I was struck to find in Bosch’s painting ametaphor for impending and traumatic change, chaos and uncertainty. The gathering clouds inBosch’s work, shaped by the invisible force of wind, pronounce thunder and foretell of a deluge.Now, as I was seeing the products of Bosch’s vision in 2001, I saw in it images of tumultouschange in Europe once again, across time. It made a deep impression on me. I discussed thisexhibition with a poet-writer friend---who had also visited it. One of my friends who saw theexhibition was translating into Hindi Harry Moullich’s Dutch novel Aanslag. The point is: artconnects different times and different places; it reflects historical transitions in its own timelesslanguage and universal metaphor. Bosch’s work spoke with those of us who saw that exhibitionin Rotterdam as though he were our contemporary.Yugoslavia, Poland, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries were on the periphery of the EEC.The European Union’s proposed move to bring all the countries inside its own periphery andjust outside it under one umberella raised doubts, misgivings, and suspicions both inside andoutside.As a participant in art exhibitions in many European states, when I came back to theNetherlands I felt that multicultural activities had received a setback. The very word multiculturalhad become anathema to many. It evoked only negative meanings associated with unwantedimmigrants, many of them illegal, spoiling Europe.However, these were effects of globalization as I understood it. It created a system ofapparently free trade cleverly manipulated by a few countries to economically benefitthemselves. What global trade we have today is lop-sided. Lower income groups in all countriesare pushed down closer to mere survival level. When Northern European countries importfruit and vegetables from India, Africa, South East Asia, or the Carribean countries the airwaycharges paid are more than the actual cost of the goods themselves. The airlines benefit fromthis trade but the consumer at the other end finds the goods expensive and unaffordable.The air transportation rates charged by Arab countries’ airlines are low as compared to therates of European airlines. So the end-price of the goods also varies accordingly. You find Dutchflowers in five star hotels and shopping malls in Tokyo, New York, and other big cities aroundthe world, but fruits and vegetables from India, Africa, South East Asia and the Carribean areseldom found there.Airlines that fly goods from countries across the world are converging on the basis of mutualgain. They control and manipulate airway charges in such a way that goods from poorercountries are flown at higher rates so that they cost more to import. That is my impression. Itravel across continents and look at these things from a common man’s point of view. I am acitizen of two civilizations and I have only the common man’s interest at heart, on either side.The Balkan war was designed to open more markets for the European Union. At present, itseffects stretch to Turkey, and eventually this ongoing process of globalization is supposed tocapitalize the world economy in such a way that money goes to where it comes from and not towhere it is needed and is in short supply. It will only turn the world into an investors’ paradise;common people will not jet-set across the world. They will stay confined to their native placesand their rapidly fading cultural memory and rich traditions of self-expression.Who will benefit by such economic globalisation that has no human or cultural component?Only mega-corporates operating across national frontiers? Or is there another form ofglobalization, more humane and conscientious, that artists will express their faith in? On oneside, there is an increasing concentration of wealth and power; on the other, there in only ahope in a future for mankind spread all over the planet in small ‘local’ places, but where ‘thelocal’ has deep cultural traditions, unique expression, struggling to survive economic, political,and even military onslaught after onslaught.I have been travelling through both Europe and India. Both the European continent and theIndian subcontinent are rich in cultural diversity and heritage. They enjoy wealth and resources.They have a deep history and have experienced periods of war and peace, destruction andconstruction, and the mindset to continue not only to survive but also to reach higher levels ofcivilization.I am a product of both these civilizations. I moved from my native India to Europe at a relativelyyoung age as an advanced student of art. I stayed on in Europe to gain day-to-day experience ofthe life around me for more than a quarter of a century or about one half of my life so far. Forme, multicultural activities were born in India. Then I went to Europe as communism wascollapsing, socialism was on the wane though it rose in Latin America in the form of newgovernments. Then Thatcher’s Great Britain and Reagan’s United States boosted capitalism tonew heights only to give rise to the monster of terrorism as a response to their game plans thatare continued by their successors.The whole world has come to believe in the paradoxes of war and peace. Since the end of thelast world war, we have the United Nations Organization working towards a mutuallyresponsible international community and pledged to universal acceptance of human rights.However, we still need an Amnesty International to bring to light violations of human rights inalmost every member country of the U.N. We face man-made environmental disasters thatinclude the present danger signals of global warming. The Greenpeace movement tries to saveus from ecocidal activities of governments, corporates, and at times ill-educated peoplethemselves. We have the International Red Cross protecting the lives or serving medical aid tovictims of war and genocide in different parts of the world. Although there are organizationsand movements to protect human beings and human values, their very need tells us the otherside of the story that the world as a whole is still insensitive to human values and issues. Thereis no final solution in sight for human strife.80 Questions Around the वर्ल्ड : Show Your Hope does not offer any final solution or setof solution to heal all of humanity’s ills. It starts with the present world’s disorder that raisesdisturbing questions and offers an image each offered by different artists from different parts ofthe world to show their hope. It aims at raising awareness levels among its audience. As atravelling exhibition it hopes to touch audiences wherever it travel, provoke them, fire theirimagination, and kindle their hope.----Bhaskar Hande ___________________________________________________________________The above article introduces the catalogue of the travelling art exhibition 80 Questions Around theवर्ल्ड : Show Your Hope. This exhibition shows one panel each of work by artists from 80 differentcountries. Each panel is 30cmx35cm painted in media of the artists’ choice. The exhibition travel toPune around mid-May 2008. It will then go to Mumbai, and from there to Dubai. This is a non-profitexhibition, not funded by any body. In India, it will be under the care of Vaishwik, private gallery andart promotion centre run by Bhaskar Hande. Bhaskar Hande has organized several artists’exchange programmes between India and the Netherlands.___________________________________________________________