ACT I. A PLANET WITHOUT WAR
Inspiration: “We are all connected to each other by the threads of fate, and the life of each is part of a whole.” (Marcus Aurelius)
Concept:
Ordinary life in extraordinary times. People of the 21st century and their peaceful daily routine as a form of resistance to chaos.
A Planet Without War.
Someday — or perhaps never — our Planet will be like this. But for now… for now, things are as they are. This act is not about politics. Not about destruction and chaos. And certainly not about pity and compassion. It is about the most ordinary NO NAME people. Each of them is just a statistic in the news, briefings, and reports of global agencies.
The heroes of this Act are Nameless People. They don’t have hundreds of thousands of followers, they are not popular, they are not talked about on the internet, and they will never be shown on TV. But they wake up in the morning, go to work, raise children, love, laugh, cry, drink tea at cafe tables or in gazebos, scroll through feeds, drop likes, argue, fight, make up, make plans, and simply live. Ordinary people of our Planet.
Outside their windows, the world can change rapidly, crumble, and go mad. Crises, wars, inflation, what was allowed yesterday evening is forbidden this morning, and vice versa. But inside, their lives continue in a quiet, peaceful everyday rhythm. Their “ordinariness” is not a curse, but a gift. Their life is a quiet, yet incredibly powerful protest against the absurdity and inhumanity of the present era. They are that fundamental “one” without which all achievements, wealth, and power turn into meaningless zeros.
They are not victims of circumstance. I shoot them as the keepers of this fragile normalcy — the thin ice between the madness of modernity and the hurricane of information noise. They live in the most different cities of our world, and each of them proves in their own way: Humanity is not a quality, it is a daily conscious choice.
This act is about the World,
that many do not notice due to the hustle, familiarity, and, again, the everyday routine. Once, I was visiting my Friend in his office on a very high floor of a skyscraper in Guangzhou. I looked down at hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of people below; they looked smaller than ants, and looked more like a churning stream of a faceless mass. They were going somewhere, driving, sitting on benches, taking photos — it reminded me of an anthill swarming with its own cares. I asked my Friend how quickly he got used to this view from the window. He replied: “In a couple of weeks.” At first, it amazed me; now, for him, it’s just the most ordinary view from the window.
And so it is with most of us, myself included. We don’t notice entire days, weeks, months, and years flying by in our lives. The habit of not seeing, not remembering, not paying attention is the scourge of modernity. We often don’t even realize the moment, just living in zombie mode.
My act is about this. It calls upon the viewer: To See! To Hear! To Feel! And most importantly — to realize and love this very moment, that very particle of the huge canvas called Life.
Therefore — Carpe Diem. Amor Fati.
We often think that life is something grand. Feats. Events. Dates on the calendar.
But in reality, life is this. Tea in a gazebo. Friends laughing on the street. A conversation on a bench among roses. A bicycle ride past what was still a building yesterday.
This is the very canvas. That enormous canvas called Life, woven from millions of such small, unnoticed, unmarked moments.
And as long as these moments exist — so do we. So does our Humanity. So does that very “one” that gives weight to everything else.
But what happens when fragile normalcy breaks? When the thin ice between the madness of modernity and everyday life cracks? When outside the window the world is no longer just changing — but crumbling?
Then the next act begins. There, where the wrappers are torn away. There, where only the essence remains. There, where the Gold of the Territories is sought among charred ruins.
