Skip to main content

Twelve art project proposals in Ai Weiwei-like proportions

– Walled: A life-size Great Wall of China, made of gold LEGO bricks, to be installed around the White House for the occasion of the 4th of July, in the event that LEGO declines to supply bricks for the project, copies of “What Happened” by Hillary Clinton will be used as bricks

– Saffron Skies: Saffron shrouds to be placed over Beijing, London, Yangon, Brussels and Berlin, each giant shroud is a patchwork of used saffron robes culled from a million monks of Myanmar, this summer installation is set for nine days, hinting at nine qualities of the Lord Buddha

– Selfie King in Heavenly Palace: Taking a selfie from Tiangong-1 space station in the background of the whole population of China — Chinese citizens, including those from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, are requested to come out for the occasion and look up at the artist on Tiangong-1 for a selfie with him, after taking the selfie with the whole population of China the artist will come down to the earth to meet with the participants individually for individual selfies, an estimated 1.3 billion selfies with the artist are to be displayed in a purpose-built museum modelled after Ai Weiwei’s head, the museum will be named Heavenly Palace [Tiangong in Chinese]

– Project 42: Out of forty-three Fabergé eggs left in the world, forty-two are to be smashed with a baseball bat in the Yankee Stadium, both the hitter (the artist) and the pitcher (Lady Gaga or Beyonce, to be confirmed), will be nude, to be televised live, ‘42’ alludes to the meaning of life

– Mechanical Cicadas: The Eiffel Tower to be covered in a colony of 1789, 000, 000 hand-wound mechanical cicadas that will drone for refugees for 1789 hours, the installation can be moved to landmarks all over the world

– Troll Tongue Tied: Breaking off the Troll Tongue [Trolltunga, Norway], and replacing it with a hyper-realistic rubber-plastic hybrid tongue for a spring day display

– Terracotta Ai-me (Greater China): A total of 2, 285, 000 Ai Weiwei statues fashioned after China’s Terracotta Army soldiers to be installed on the Tiananmen Square for the occasion of China Army Day, the number 2, 285, 000 being the size of the twenty-first century Greater China Armed Forces

– Slant-1: The Fallingwater at Mill Run, Pennsylvania, to be tilted 45 degrees to the right, permanent installation

– Slant-2: The Jade Pagoda in Mandalay, Myanmar, to be tilted 45 degrees to the east, permanent installation

– Worldwide Womb: A hyper-realistic larger-than-life womb of a nine-month pregnant woman, complete with chemically reproduced amniotic fluid, any volunteer who would like to coil up naked in the womb in foetal position for a minimum duration of nine hours will be supplied with an oxygen mask and a feeding tube, her situation will be constantly monitored and televised, a couple or a family of three can also volunteer to be in the womb to simulate twin or triplet pregnancy, volunteers are free to choose their preferred way out, pushing strenuously through a rubber vagina or Caesarean section, permanent installation

– Pilgrim Whale-99: A 99-metre blimp, the shape of a blue whale, to kiss the banana bud of the 99-metre tall Shwedagon Pagoda, for the Double Ninth Festival

– Seediness-neediness: One million infinitesimal porcelain poppy seeds in the eye of an average-sized needle, to be eyed by up to ten thousand people at a time using a gigantic clinical microscope the size of the World Trade Center in New York City, permanent installation

••••

from Ko Ko Thett’s most recent collection from Zephyr Press. Burmese poet Ko Ko Thett is now living in England. He is the editor of a new collection of poems by the Burmese resistance: Picking Off New Shoots Will Not Stop the Spring .

 


 Sobre Ko Ko Thett

Poeta, tradutor, editor e exilado político até 2011, nasceu em Rangum em 1972. Em 1995, enquanto estudava engenharia no Instituto de Tecnologia de sua cidade natal (YIT), lançou clandestinamente seu primeiro livro de poemas Old Gold. Com o lançamento de Funeral do ouro resistente, seu segundo livreto, ele foi detido, em uma base militar por 135 dias, por seu engajamento na insurreição política de dezembro de 1996. Após a sua libertação, em abril de 1997, Ko Ko Thett deixou tanto o YIT como a própria Birmânia, mudando-se para Singapura e, em seguida, para Bangkok, onde passou três anos trabalhando para o Serviço Jesuítico aos Refugiados Ásia-Pacífico. Em 2000, Thett foi para a Finlândia, onde fez estudos de paz e conflito na Universidade de Helsinki, antes de se mudar para Viena, onde estudou no Instituto para o Desenvolvimento Internacional da Universidade de Viena. Atualmente, vive na Bélgica e é o editor do website birmano “Poesia Internacional” e co-editor e tradutor de Bones Will Crow: 15 Contemporary Burmese Poets, an anthology of Burmese poetry, que, em 2012, recebeu o prêmio English PEN Writers in Translation Programme (Inglaterra) e foi considerado pelo jornal inglês The Guardian “um dos dez melhores livros que captam um dos países mais tumultuados da história”. Saiu, este ano, The Burden of Being Burmese, seu novo livro de poemas.