DIAMANT | 100 x 60 cm | Cardboard, UV Foil, Acrylics, Threads, and Books
What is true – and what do we perceive as truth?
DIAMANT is a diamond-shaped sculpture placed in public space, exhibited at the art festival 48h Neukölln 2025 in Berlin, Germany.
In “Vita Activa”, Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt writes that public space, a space that allows us to act and discuss political matters, does not exist a priori.
Public space needs to be enacted, and enacted continuously.
Where is our public space nowadays? Where do we come together to discuss common matters, political matters? Where do we examine our truths and our perceptions? Where do we construe our shared reality as people in a democracy?
Much of public space has shifted towards the digital world, a world where the individual can mask and hide, trolls play tricks, fake news distort our vision, and algorithm bubbles prevent us from entering constructive debate. Our pluralistic democracy gets weakened.
DIAMANT facilitates the enactment of public space in the physical world.
It unites us people in person and reminds us that every perspective on a matter is but one side of it.
The sculpture serves as a metaphor: Each side of the “diamond” represents one perspective on a topic. The matter is shaped by the perspectives on it. Just like a diamond, democracy is precious. It is strong. It can hold space for opposing opinions, and unite them under the principle of a pluralistic democracy.
During the exhibition of this artwork in public, several books got taken away by unknown people. The sculpture has been dismantled and discarded by the artist and is no longer available in the material world, because it was taking up too much space and there was no place to reasonably store it. What stays is this video documentation – and the idea.