OSOTWA (Kitovu)*
As part of the Chapter Freedom transdisciplinary team, artist Koen Vanmechelen selected OSOTWA (Kitovu) as the artwork to integrate the ideations of group 1 with the feedback and reflections of the transdisciplinary team.
*Osotwa (Kitovu) means ‘umbilical cord’ in the language of the Maasai
Transdisciplinary team feedback group 2
Community. Freedom can’t exist without three preconditions, and the balance they require: our own responsibility, empathy, and solidarity. You have elaborated those preconditions from a very personal approach. But how do they relate to each other? Do they also reflect a wider framework, such as human rights or social justice? In other words, how could a different kind of balance produce a different kind of freedom; and which one is preferable over the other?
Your concept of freedom is embedded in a world that is virtually ideal. But the reality is different: the world is blighted by chaos and conflict. If you look at the reality of our world, how do you deal with chaos: can a savage world without structure also generate freedom, and what kind of freedom are we talking about in that case?
You also discuss the room, and whether or not it’s empty. It isn’t: it’s filled with heritage, with the riches of history and with the intellectual work of those who went before us. Like them, each new generation asks itself how you can learn to be free, and how those preconditions should be (re-)balanced.
