“My purpose isn't to be confrontational. My purpose is to find out about the world and play myself against it to the extent that it is even conceivable.” WorldPlayPurpose Author:Aleksandra Mir
“The Stonehenge proposal got a lot of interesting criticism. One of the best - or worst - said something like, "Go home to Las Vegas." I think this project could possibly be realized at a very late part of my career. Right now, I don't have the authority, the budget, the credibility.” ThinkingSaidHomeInterestingCareersWorstRight NowAuthorityProjectsLateCriticismBudgetsCredibilityProposalVegasLas VegasStonehenge Author:Aleksandra Mir
“I'm completely uninterested in the origins of Stonehenge. I don't care about the real story behind it or whether it should be saved or not. What I'm interested in is this: in the Victorian era, you could go there as an early cultural tourist and you were given a chisel to chip off a bit of the stones and take it with you. That's what you did in Victorian times.” ShouldRealStoriesCareGivenBitsBehindsStonesDon't CareSavedErasI Don't CareChipsTouristsVictorianVictorian EraChiselsReal StoryUninterestedStonehengeVictorian Times Author:Aleksandra Mir
“Stonehenge had an aura but it was also just stone. Then in the sixties, it became a great hedonistic, hippie, druid, rock-n-roll party site. There are amazing pictures of people up on the stones going wild and that's the image I recreated for my model of the project: full access to everyone. I even invented a Stonehenge soccer team that uses spaces between the stones as goals.” PeopleUseGoalSpacePartyTeamRocksProjectsModelsStonesAccessSoccerRock N RollSixtySiteHippieAurasSpace BetweenDruidsHedonisticSoccer TeamStonehenge Author:Aleksandra Mir
“People get upset when Baghdad, the "Cradle of Civilization" is burning, or when the Buddhas in Afghanistan are falling. These are real concerns.” PeopleRealFallCivilizationConcernBurningUpsetAfghanistanCradleBaghdad Author:Aleksandra Mir
“Of course I can have a simple reaction of sympathy and sorrow to destruction. But you also know that you can't have new things if you don't occasionally destroy the old. That's something you're really not allowed to say because things are often destroyed according to particular power relations so it means taking a stand in those cases, which I am not really interested in doing either. I think I am simply interested in looking.” IfsThinkingKnowsMeanI CanCoursesSimpleCasesParticularSorrowDestructionRelationReactionsDestroyedNew Things Author:Aleksandra Mir
“Dutch beaches were known to me as man-made territories, as part of various land reclamation projects. But I was also interested in the media reality of the Moon landing. I wanted to use that event as a measure of time, to see what had happened in those thirty years - which happens to be my lifetime as well. I was born in 1967 and I remember seeing the Moon landing on TV when I was two. All those things were in play. Then it became a big production. It took five months to gather up the goodwill and make it happen.” MenYearsWellsMadeTwoPlayUseBigsRealityHappensWantedRememberBornKnownFiveSeeingHappenedLandMediaEventsTvsMonthsMoonProjectsLifetimeProductionsVariousBeachThirtyTerritoryMake It HappenGoodwillThirty YearsLandingDutchMoon LandingReclamation Author:Aleksandra Mir
“I'm neither shy nor impressed by media and press. It's just another industry to me. My response to the criticism was, "I work with a steel factory. Why can't I work with the media?"” MediaIndustryCriticismPressesResponseShyFactoriesImpressedSteel Author:Aleksandra Mir
“I've gotten all kinds of reactions and it's been used in so many different ways.” WayKindDifferentUsedReactionsAll KindsDifferent Ways Author:Aleksandra Mir