Lewis Koch
lives in Madison, Wisconsin, USA
‘In Wisconsin’ billboard project
Madison & vicinity
1998
Madison & vicinity
1998
A series of eight billboards was mounted in March 1998 with a photograph of a tranquil Wisconsin landscape and the name of a place in turmoil from the eight geopolitical areas of the world. The place names—Colombia; Afghanistan; Rwanda; East Timor; Bosnia; Washington, D.C.; Chiapas; and Palestine—were examples of places then currently in conflict and were not intended to be exclusive of other troubled areas throughout the world.
As an artist's response to the relative peacefulness and calm of his immediate environment, the billboard series sought to engage the public in a thoughtful consideration of one's personal place in global affairs: How does our peace and prosperity impact upon other places in conflict? How is it that we are favored to live in relative calm, when just over the horizon there are innumerable places (perhaps just as beautiful) where people must live with crisis and war? What is our connection?
As an artist's response to the relative peacefulness and calm of his immediate environment, the billboard series sought to engage the public in a thoughtful consideration of one's personal place in global affairs: How does our peace and prosperity impact upon other places in conflict? How is it that we are favored to live in relative calm, when just over the horizon there are innumerable places (perhaps just as beautiful) where people must live with crisis and war? What is our connection?