Keynote Paper for the Seminar - at the UNESCO Conference on Culture & Development, Stockholm March 31, 1998,

Today we are gathered here in this room and I, as an artist, will invite you to join me in extending and expanding the boundaries of this room beyond it's four walls. We artists have the power of imagination to expand this space as far as we intend, enough even to accommodate the whole planet and beyond. That is the prerogative of creative artists.

Before we take our position at the centre-stage of 'Shaping Histories and Imagining Futures', I would like to establish why we claim to have the right to take this unique position.

Forgive me if I dare to stretch the parameters of my paper, only to illustrate a concept, which is the core of my thesis.

We are all aware that there is a magnetic line running between the two poles of the Earth (the North and the South). Birds, animals, and other living species on this planet use this natural energy line to orientate themselves. At one time in history, we humans also were intuitively aware of this line, but our social up bringing has made us severe this connection. As human beings, we do draw our own maps on this planet disregarding natural energy lines, but we still need the North and South to read our maps. Otherwise we shall be completely lost.

Using this example of magnetic line, I want to take you further and discuss with you a similar natural force, which is really the core of the whole universe. (A universe in which this planet 'Earth' is only a tiny dot.) It is the very force that has set the universe in continuos motion It also makes the Sun rise every morning, water flow down-stream, trees grow and flowers blossom and makes us, the human beings, get up every morning to face the world. This force is called the 'Evolutionary Force'. We all and everything around us what our eyes can or even not see, is part of the same evolutionay process that was set in motion from the time unknown.

There was a time when all human beings were fully in tune with the evolutionary force, but at one time in history, when people developed the idea of ownership. The concept of ownership was followed by the human instinct of greed. This new development changed the future of mankind for good. That was the very moment in human history when we started to move away from our natural way of living and started to lose our direct connection with this life force.

On the other hand, from the very time human beings have been searching for this missing link through meditation, artistic creations and through scientific discoveries.

Today, in this room, if we can reconnect ourselves to this evolutionary force, we can not only expand the boundaries of this space but can also change the world around us.

In our own individual ways, we are intuitively engaged in the same process, but most of the time the individual effort is like a mouse nibbling away a small part of the mountain. But if we collectively focus our intent and put all our imaginative/creative energy in a shared dream, I assure you today that we can shape the future of mankind to a more creative, positive and humane future.

The world we have been handed by previous generations is a very complex world, where everything is distorted by the human greed.

It is essential to look at the state of today's affairs in the world so that we may establish our position and be fully aware.

In recent history, the greed of people from one part of the world has subjected people from other parts to colonial yokes. They have also made us go through two of the biggest wars in history, subjected millions to gas chambers, and denied basic human rights to millions more under apartheid regimes and so on. Who were these people who perpetrated all this to satisfy their greedy instincts, these are the people of the so called civilised West.

The same dominant West also wrote history and called these wars the World Wars, so that it need not to take the full blame for these barbaric acts.

During the second half of this century, in the aftermath of these wars, humanity was further subjected to the continuos tension of the Cold War and all the peace loving people of the planet were condemned as the "Third World". These peace-loving people were not only labelled as the 'Third World, but the West also took away their power to change anything of their own future without the consent of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

This traumatic century also gave birth to dominant opposing concepts of life, which are Liberal Capitalism and Socialism. It would be wrong for me here to go too much into the details of the two systems, but what was positive about this situation was that the two concepts worked as counter balance to each other, so that one system didn't go bezerk.

Nearly a decade ago, when the Soviet system burst, because it tried to hold back the natural growth of human thoughts and aspirations. AS a result it made the other side feel as if it had won the argument. Now the satellite media of the dominant West is telling people all over the world that Coca-Cola and McDonalds is the solution to global problems.

If you really think about it, it is like if we woke up one morning and heard the news that the Earth had lost it's South Pole. Can you imagine how much chaos it would create? As a result the planet may even loose its orientation and it's annual cycle?

It wasn't as if people were fond of the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe, but the concept of Socialism gave a distant hope to thousands of down-trodden people and an alternative concept to intellectuals all over the world. Now we are left with one Pole - one opinion world, which is nothing less than a totalitarian regime.

I believe that this is the time for us, the artists and thinkers together, to occupy this conceptual gap and to create a counter concept of life; one that is more in tune with the evolutionary force. So that this counter concept is not another econo-political ideology but a concept that is more creative and humane, more enduring.

It is not only our prerogative but our duty to do so at this very juncture in history, and that is what fires me as sculptor.

Just a little about the history of WB2000, it was originally a concept to bring artists, scientists, economists, social scientists and others together to imagine a collective future for the next century. The enormity of such an undertaking, for an artist like me, is nothing less than an impossible proposition. So I drew a proposal for a symposium for artists and thinkers from the Arts to come together to reflect at the last 50 years history and examine if we really have contributed towards shaping it. So that we may dare to imagine a future too.

The good news is that since I made my presentation at UNESCO early 1997, UNESCO is seriously thinking of not only supporting this project for the year 2000, but to carry forward my original idea by organising similar symposia for scientists in the year 2001 and economists and others in the year 2002.

Thank you
Avtarjeet Dhanjal