HISTORY: Same But Different
This idea of exploring the interconnected role of the performative collaboration and the citizen in shaping and transforming public space has been a fundamental endeavor of Same but Different (Equinox) and its artists worldwide since a symposium hosted by Bbeyond in Belfast in 2017. During this event, Chumpon Apisuk proposed a day of public action as a follow-up to Same Difference: Equinox to Equinox (September 2016), where 283 artists from around the world (45 locations in 29 countries) worked together in public spaces.
Apisuk said, "It is the day that all states must recognize and allow actions from the people which are peaceful and non-violent. This day of action can be with or without context, but for the recognition of all people’s rights to share the public space together, in solidarity with each other, in respect of each other’s rights to share the same public space, as well as the time.”
More and more countries are experiencing social unrest due to the rise of governmental restrictions on basic human rights. Every continent is experiencing some form of repression of civil liberties, be it individual, social, economic, political, religious, cultural, or environmental. These rights are at the forefront of what makes us human and shape civil society.
The global discourse initiated by Same but Different (Equinox) is based on an openness to talk about public space as a social and political sphere. The pandemic has increasingly shown us that public space is essential for community life. It is a place of physical creation that is repeatedly claimed and interpreted by a variety of groups and movements.
* Visit the Facebook group Same Difference: Equinox to Equinox to follow the global movement and see prior iterations.
image BOTTOM: PAErsche: Same but Different: March 2022, Cologne, Germany. Photo: Yves Itzek.
image MIDDLE: Bbeyond FB post by Siobhan Mullen Wolfe.
image TOP: PAErsche: Same but Different: Equinox, 27 MAR 2018, Cologne, Germany, Photo by Anja Plonka.
