Marcelo Cidade

"Citizen"

Spending some time in Rotterdam made me understand how important the harbor region was for this city, and how distressing is the thought of a higher sea level, or the consequences of an inundation. As for me, an artist facing a physical and social situation with this magnitude, I reckoned there wasn’t any intervention I could make that would grasp this problem in a functional way. Also I understood that it wasn´t only up to me: a whole society would need this huge structural change, urban, daily, a new social positioning, a new citizenship, to reflect on the exchanging relation between land and water, or even water and cement.

Using the strategy of micro politics, that is, acting on the space within my power, believing that any small intervention can change the whole when it’s reflected on an individual experience in this space, I developed a project called "Citizen", where I fastened a dressed up mannequin covered with cement, wearing trousers, T-shirt, cap and a backpack, by the water on the Wallhavenstraat O-Z, and so created the eternal harbor observer, motionless, grey.

I assimilate the image of the secure man as a metaphor for the impossibility of change because of his dependence on a socio-cultural and urban situation. What I propose is a reflection on the idea of citizenship, and the exercise of a small intervention, almost invisible in the scale of the city, could change the daily experience, if only for the people who transit in this harbor area.

Yes, we are sinking. Not only in water, but also in our concrete and cemented reality.