A Ubiquity of Sparrows: Man Must Conquer Nature

This work  contains contemporary quotes in Chinese and English which relate to Mao's Great Leap Forward. These quotes bracket Mao's quote and contention that "Man Must Conquer Nature"

The top and bottom rows are images of sparrows taken in Berlin and Montréal . The center row are images from Berlin of a ceramic sparrow  which I was  offered at the flea market in Mauerpark (sparrows truly are everywhere in Berlin). I chose the photos of the ceramic bird on which to print the text, as it seemed a fitting synecdoche.

​The quotes, in order, are:

If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future.
Ai Weiwei – Artist, Dissenter

In the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. We cannot find exceptions to this rule, no matter where we look.
Amartya Sen - Economist, Nobel Prize Laureate

Man Must Conquer Nature.
Mao Zedong - Chairman of the Communist Party of China, 1949-1976

The successes and mistakes of reform and opening up are there to see, but political system reform has gone from standstill to going backwards, so every natural disaster becomes a man-made one, and every natural disaster is magnified.
Pu Zhiqiang – Civil Rights Lawyer, Advocate

Human memory is the ladder on which a country and a people advance.
Yang Jisheng – Journalist, Writer

​I selected the quotes from various books and articles I am currently reading: please see the bibliography  for further information.

Details: Individual Images

​ Installation: West 36th Street Project Space in New York, 2016

If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future.

                                                          Ai Weiwei – Artist, Dissenter