Michael Najjar's work featured in UN's publication
Guest Artist in 2019
German photographer Michael Najjar has been featured in CENTERPOINT NOW, “Are we there yet?”, a publication commemorating the UN’s 75th anniversary.
Michael Najjar has been featured in CENTERPOINT NOW, “Are we there yet?”, a publication commemorating the UN’s 75th anniversary with works and commentary by international artists, activists, innovators, academics, and policy-makers.
The German photographer came to CERN in 2019 as part of our Guest Artists programme. The artwork supersymmetric particles pictures the ATLAS Experiment, one of the four at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. It is a general-purpose particle physics experiment run by an international collaboration. With CMS, it is designed to exploit the full discovery potential and the huge range of physics opportunities that the LHC provides. 46 m long, 25 m high and 25 m wide, the 7000-tonne machine is the largest particle detector ever constructed. This gigantic object evokes a sublime experience as it isolates a highly complex measuring area from the real world; it creates its own isolated sphere of reality. In his artwork, Michael Najjar takes a complex critical look at the technological forces shaping and drastically transforming the early 21st century.
Najjar fuses art, science, and technology into visions of future social structures emerging under the impact of cutting-edge technologies in his artistic practice. His 'outer space' series deals with the latest developments in space exploration and the way they will shape our future life on Earth, in Earth’s near orbit and on other planets. The cultural dimension represented by the current transition process towards a larger human presence in space is very much at the centre of the series. The intimate experience of “living through” situations, which provide the leitmotifs of his art, is vital to the artist. This will culminate in the artist´s own flight into space. As one of the pioneer astronauts of Virgin Galactic, Michael Najjar will be embarking on SpaceShipTwo on one of its future spaceflights, where he will be the first artist to travel in space.
CENTERPOINT NOW, “Are we there yet?” presents an unexpected take on the United Nations’ 75th anniversary, reflecting on the immense scope of the UN’s mandate through a wide range of topics. The strong emphasis on art invites the reader to engage with the subjects on various levels.
Read the publication here. CENTERPOINT NOW “Are we there yet?” is published by World Council of Peoples for the United Nations (WCPUN) © 2020.