New Europeans

A Test Site For Everyday Life

Deeply Emotional Apr15 2016, Amsterdam

Is this what you *really* want?

The slogan on the one billboard we have to ourselves is part of a wider conversation incorporating the flags that are spaced ten metres apart along the wall at the New Europeans site.

We are given a false choice in elections, this person or that person, the red team or the blue team, and maybe the green and yellow team, and some other bollocks.

Is this what we really want? What do we want? It surely can’t be answered by some dry political contest over how much austerity each side is going to impose, and how well the leaders look like they’re going to manage the big things, things that are made to seem distant and unimportant despite having a self-evidently huge impact on our lives.

But the flags intend to echo the kind of hesitancy, indecision and at times disaffected exasperation that we in the more affluent part of Europe still display to such a question.

Is this what you really want?

“Hmm”

“Maybe”

“Eurgh”

“Woah”

“Whaat”

“Why?”

“Why not!”

This is made funnier still by the communication breakdown that led to Europe by People flags punctuating every exclamation from our flag conversation.

“Hmm”

“Europe by People”

“Maybe”

“Europe by People”

“Eurgh”

“Europe by People”

Is the Europe by People project also unsure of what it really wants? If so, fair enough, Europe is a pretty complex thing, how on earth do we bring it back to the people?