WHERE DO WE GO FROM NOW?

In the lead up to COP26, CIRCA is dedicating their global art and culture platform to a month-long public investigation of the urgent question ‘WHERE DO WE GO FROM NOW?’, featuring key responses from world leading artists, activists and thinkers including Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramović, Nikita Gale, Indy Johar and Tom Whyman amongst others. Making public art truly public, CIRCA is offering everyone who answers this question the once in a lifetime opportunity to both see their response appear on the iconic Piccadilly Lights and win a special signed print by Ai Weiwei worth £5,000.

Marina Abramović said:

I propose a world of simplicity, forgiveness; a world with no anger; and a world of love for our planet and all human beings living in it. It’s very simple but it’s a lot to do.

Ai Weiwei said:

To be a healthy human society we have to respect each other, and we have to really pay our respects to humanity and to really defend humanity, human rights and freedom of speech.

‘WHERE DO WE GO FROM NOW?’ harnesses today’s global moment of unpredictable flux to propose routes toward more inclusive, more creative and fairer societies, placing a focus on the shared “now” of this unique post-crisis moment, rather than the divided “here” of our individual circumstances. This aims to propel the CIRCA public art programme into its next phase of connecting public art with public debate, a year on from its launch with Ai Weiwei in October 2020. 

Alongside their monthly schedule broadcast across screens in London’s Piccadilly Circus, Tokyo and Seoul, CIRCA will publish its first-ever print publication, a foldout roadmap to the future. 10,000 copies printed on 100% recycled paper will be freely distributed during Frieze week, and at events in the run-up to the COP26 conference in Glasgow on 31 October. 

The roadmap will feature commissioned responses to the question ‘WHERE DO WE GO FROM NOW’ from artist Pan Daijing, writer Charlie Fox, design studio REM Atelier, poet Emily Pope, architect Indy Johar, philosopher Tom Whyman, activist Marylize Biubwa, among many others.