Donna Conlon | The Forest
Coexistence, 2003, video, 5:26 min
The film depicts worker ants in woodland, carrying pieces of leaves, some real and some artificial, paper leaves inserted by the artist into their habitat. The paper leaves are marked with peace signs and the flags of the 191 United Nations member states; thus the ant procession comes to resemble a parade of the world’s nations. The ants’ typical vigorous activity analogizes activities of peace and collaboration, and their appearance with the flags is a metaphor for human functioning. The work was presented at the 2005 Venice Biennale, and described by Irma Arestizábal, curator of the Instituto Italo-Latino Americano pavilion, as addressing “the existence of a thing, while another already exists.” This assertion refers explicitly to the ants’ activity, but may be applied to any form of coexistence in the world as a whole, and in Israel in particular.