LIBERTÀ (FREEDOM)

sand, cardboard, enamel on plywood panel
39.4 x 31.5 in (100 x 80 cm)
1/1
2007
Many years have passed since that moment, yet I remember it vividly. I was just sorting through some books, TV on in the background, keeping me company with its constant chatter. Then out of the blue, this warm male voice starts reciting verses from a poem I’d never heard before, but it immediately grabs my attention. It was about freedom, a topic that really hits home for me. I felt this rush of wonder right away: I had to find those verses, read them over carefully, make them mine. That’s how I stumbled upon “Freedom” by Paul Éluard, distributed in thousands of copies from Allied planes over Nazi-occupied France. It’s a tribute to freedom that resonates across time and borders, a poem written in 1942 yet still so relevant and alive. I felt like I needed to make it my own somehow, so I decided to turn it into an image. There were just too many verses to reproduce them all, hence the choice to isolate a few, trim them down, leaving only a few key words intact. “FREEDOM,” I too have written your name.

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