Baltimore based street artist GAIA, just completed a striking mural in Ostend (Belgium) for the 3 edition of the brilliant mural festival The Crystal Ship. GAIA along with other artists left behind them works of art that will become permanent additions to the ever growing street art scene that resulted from the two prior editions.
About the Mural
Entitled “Requiem for Migrants, Requiem for the Liberal Order”, the mural depicts a lifevest with red poppies and carnations hovering above the North Sea. The mural is adjacent to the austere ‘Seamen’s Memorial’ (1954) by sculptor Willy Kreitz. When I asked the artist about the mural, he said: “Migrants represent the greatest test of the extents of the Liberal Order and the only answer to resurgent far right populism is compassionate humanity.”
The Liberal Order (or Lack Thereof)
The liberal international economic order (LIEO), also known as the rules-based order or the US-led liberal international order, is a notion that contemporary international relations are organized around several guiding principles, such as open markets, multilateral institutions, liberal democracy, and leadership by the United States and its allies. The order was established in the aftermath of World War II, and is often associated with Pax Americana.
International organizations play a central role in the liberal order. The World Trade Organization, for example, creates and implements free trade agreements, while the World Bank provides aid to developing countries. The order is also premised on the notion that liberal trade and free markets will contribute to global prosperity and peace. Critics argue that the liberal order has sometimes led to social problems such as inequality and environmental degradation. Critics also argue that the liberal order tilts the scales in favor of the United States and its Western allies.
We live in the propaganda age, where facts and evidence aren’t important! I wonder what kind of history we are leaving our kids. The one about the so-called war on terror, or liberating the Iraqi people from a tyrant?
Amid the chemical attacks on Syrian civilians last week, and Trump’s bombing of the “supposedly” chemical facilities in Syria, I am lead to believe that the US and its Allies in the West are advancing their own agenda and do not have the Syrians’ best interests at heart as they claim to have. Or else they would have spared the Syrians the “non-chemical attacks” that have killed over half a million and displaced half the country’s population.
Not to mention the Yemeni civil war and the Palestinian conflict which are both inflicted by US and Western allies backed proxies.Sami
About the Artist
Born in New York City, his name derives from the Greek designation for “earth goddess,” and early in his career he used animal imagery to underscore his interest in bringing nature to urban landscapes. After graduating from high school in June 2007, Gaia moved to Baltimore and studied for four years at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he broadened his iconography. Over the last several years he has been creating large-scale murals worldwide to engage the community where he works in a dialogue by using historical and sociological references to these neighborhoods. Gaia also developed an interest in the evolution of urban neighborhoods. He began incorporating portraits of influential, and sometimes controversial urban developers: people such as Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Moses, Henry Flagler, James Rouse, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. These men built highways, skyscrapers and housing projects. Collectively and irrevocably, they altered our perception of public space. For this reason, Gaia layered them into his urban murals.
His studio work, installations and gallery projects have been exhibited throughout the world most notably The Baltimore Museum of Art, Rice Gallery in Houstonand Palazzo Collicola Arti Visive in Spoleto and the Civil and Human Rights Museum in Atlanta.
Gaia lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland, but spends a majority of his time painting murals across the world and has produced works in all six habitable continents.
