Territories of the State of Mind

The artists in every country are deeply involved and strongly influenced by their
social context, the economical conditions and their attitudes which they inherited
from their own communities' culture. The state of mind of an artists is effected on
the state of condition of the particular state where he or she is living in certain
time. Perhaps it's their fatherland, perhaps it's not. The states are separated by
artificial borders raised because of the "raison d'état" but the artists' state of mind
and mental conditions much more belong to another territory which intersects the
geographical and geostrategical realities. This virtual territory called the
'international art scene' with its formal and informal networks, criss-crossing
personal and institutional connections and its habitants are the artists and
everybody else as audience, who is enchanted by its diversity, creativity and
freedom. Since centuries through the European history one can find the
phenomena that the artists communities are first of all international and only in the
second place they identified themselves as artists who are members of one
particular nation. However the nation as a notion and the basis for the state's
sovereignty the invention of the 19th century's political movements. Nowadays
when one part of Europe is going to be deliberated from barriers of borders the
artists start to get a new dimension of their artistic activity: They could be the
catalysators of this process, their inventions should contribute to improve the
communication between different culture and even they should offer new ideas for
the politicians. Since the artists' visions are often a step ahead from most of the
people, their significant role couldn't be eliminated in this case. As the railway-
network covers the hole European continent and connects both the countries in and
out of the existing European Union in this sense it would serve as a metaphor for
future, hoping that all the countries - where the artists participating in this project
came from - will be part of a broader community of nations as the artists are
already members of their own.

Barnabas Bencsik, Budapest