​Ralf Sander - Artist

I suggest a sculpture which will be finished through, collaborative authorship. ( I don`t like the word paticipative)

The artwork invites Ulsan’s residents and visitors to engrave their thoughts or leave a graphic sign on the sculpture. What do you fear most, what do you wish most for your future?

The accessible part of the sculpture will be covered with signatures and images they will change its color. I will supply the visitors with permanent markers. A text will explain the project and the way of using it:

We invite the citizens of Ulsan , and visitors to the town, to add their thoughts here next to ours. In doing so we commit ourselves in creating future. One day the sculpture will have disappeared from the Taehwa-river, and the site of the sculpture will be empty but our collective thought will remain. In the end it is only we ourselves who can make the change .

Object: Ten oil barrels, 15m strong oil pipe 400 x 400 x 250 cm and many permanent marker. The drums will have an innocent shiny surface. I will leave permanent, water-resistant, black markers with the drums and ask the visitors to comment, sign or leave graffiti about the question:” What do you fear most, what do you wish most for your future?

It will be a democratic and collaborative sculpture .The visitor will become a participant in the process of creating the object and thought.

Design influences

Oil barrels are not necessarily ugly.  My design refers to a very famous classical sculpture in design and content but in a contemporary form.

Laocoön warned his fellow Trojans against the wooden horse presented to the city by the Greeks. According to the myth he was killed by two serpents sent by Athene, to prevent him destroying the deadly fraud of the Greeks, the Trojan Horse. My sculpture refers to this myth.  The process of blending masses of text, images, information and other traces is very important for the final outcome.